turkeys and disease.

[buckrubboy]

If you would find wild turkeys when they are small and rase them in a pen is it ok to release them? Not the first generation though, the turkeys babies? Someone told me that they would then be tame turkeys and they would carry a disease. Is this true?

[RayC]

Well first thing is depending on the laws in your state it may not be legal to take them to begin with. Beyond that they really need to be with their mother and other birds to learn how to survive in the wild. Initial efforts to restore wild turkeys to new places failed when they tryed using pen raised birds for that reason. For the disease part, if they are raised near domestic fowl, they may indeed be suseptable to carry something out into the wild.

[vmartin]

i am sure it is illegal in kansas to raise them without a licence. i am going to apply for the licence myself. i have raised turkeys from the egg to 3 months old before though. the turkeys remained very wild as i raised them, going nuts at the sight of a human if they ever saw you come down to feed them. when we released them into an area that didn't previously have turkeys they thrived, 100% survival rate, we relased them at 3 months old.

one farmer whom i hunt his land raised some the same way but he gave his turkeys a lot of attention as they grew up. when he released his turkeys they adopted a little fear of humans but not much as they often would hang out in his yard. a year after releasing them they reverted back to a completely wild state avoiding the house and humans, and 1/3 of his turkeys survived but i believe it is due to the amount of preditors and turrain difference in his area.

[buckrubboy]

if they do carry something out in the wild will it kill off all the other turkeys? or just some? and when you say fowl, does that mean chickens? becuase we have a chicken house but im not raising them near it, about 1000 yards or so away. does that matter?

[DTC]

When we cut our hayfields we always come across turkey nest. Most of the time the mower breaks all the eggs but sometimes we are able to save some. I do incubate them and turn them loose. I have started putting zip ties on one leg. I turned 8 loose in November and I saw all of them the first week of March and the all had yellow zip ties. I also have a neighbor that does this same thing. I think I have turned loose 20 birds in the last 2 years. When I turn them out they hang around for about 1 week and then their wild instincts take over. I figure if I don't try to raise them then they don't have a chance.

[NY/Al]

First off, unless absolutly necessary, never take young turkeys or turkey eggs from the wild, but if its the only way then sometimes it must be done. These birds will be just like any others, raise them till they are selfsuffient and release them as soon as possible.