Raising turkeys is more challenging than raising any other poultry. Our goal is to help preserve as many of the endangered heritage breeds as we can. This is just one reason we chose this heritage breed. Learn all about raising heritage breed Chocolate Turkeys.
Because we focus on raising endangered heritage breed livestock, we went to The Livestock Conservancy’s website to research heritage turkey breeds.
We raise heritage breed chickens, and heritage breeds of pigs so adding heritage breed turkeys seemed the natural thing to do.
We didn’t choose Chocolate Turkeys because they’re made of chocolate, which would be a good reason indeed. Our reasons were more personal.
History of the Heritage Breed Chocolate Turkey
Before the Civil War, the Chocolate Turkey was the turkey breed of choice in the south. This was especially so in our stomping grounds of West Central Louisiana and South Central Mississippi.
Because food became scarce during the war the turkeys were eaten, they were killed in battle, and their breeders were lost to the war.
This created devasting destruction for the breed. Even now, they’re still on the “Critical” list with the ALBC.
Most of today’s Chocolate Turkey flocks have some Bronze, Bourbon Red, or Narragansett in their DNA due to the decimation of the breed. This doesn’t mean they aren’t a heritage breed according to The Livestock Conservancy which accepts them as a true heritage breed. The APA doesn’t accept them as a pure breed.
I’m sure you already guessed their name, “Chocolate”, comes from the color of their feathers, shanks, and feet. They are all three a solid milk chocolate color when the bird is mature. Even though they’re considered the largest of the heritage turkey breeds, they’re known for their gentle nature.
One of the things I like about turkeys, don’t get upset with me, better than chickens is that they imprint with their people much like geese do. I have a friend I call Mother Goose because of the strong bond her geese have with her. Our Chocolates imprinted with me and we enjoy turkey conversations.
We were also attracted to the heritage breed chocolate turkeys because they produce more meat than most of the other heritage breeds. A mature tom averages 33 pounds while the hen averages a mature weight of 18 pounds. Their dressed weight is 24 to 28 pounds for the tom and 14 to 16 pounds for the hen. The hens are also excellent mothers which makes preserving the breed on the farmstead practical.
Listen To Our Interview About Chocolate Turkeys at The Homestead Livestock Summit
What is a Heritage Breed Turkey?
According to the ALBC, a heritage breed must meet 3 qualifications.
- They must breed naturally. We all understand what this means. It’s interesting to note a heritage breed turkey must have naturally mated grandparents and parents.
- They must be able to endure a lengthy, natural, outdoor reproduction system. A breeding hen is productive for 5 to 7 years on average. A breeding Tom is productive for 3 to 5 years on average.
- They must have a slow growth rate. It takes a heritage breed turkey 28 weeks to reach its marketable weight. The slow growth rate gives them time to develop their skeletal system and internal organs so they can handle the weight of their muscle mass.
“Interestingly, the turkey known as the Broad Breasted Bronze in the early 1930s through the late 1950s is nearly identical to today’s Heritage Bronze turkey – both naturally mating, productive, long-lived, and requiring 26-28 weeks to reach market weight.
This early Broad Breasted Bronze is very different from the modern turkey of the same name. The Broad Breasted turkey of today has traits that fit modern, genetically controlled, intensively managed, efficiency-driven farming. While superb at their job, modern Broad Breasted Bronze and Broad Breasted White turkeys are not Heritage Turkeys. Only naturally mating turkeys meeting all of the above criteria are Heritage Turkeys.” – ALBC
Caring for Heritage Breed Turkey Poults
Once we ordered the poults, I tried looking for information to see if I needed to do anything different for them from chicks. I was shocked to see there simply isn’t a great deal of information available. Since they are more fragile than chicks, I wanted to be prepared.
I was able to determine the temperature needs to be 5-10 degrees warmer than it does for chicks during the first couple of weeks. It’s also better for them to have their food and water elevated to neck level. Other than these two small differences, they are pretty much the same as brooding mail order chicks.
We ordered 15 Chocolate Turkey poults. Three died within the first two days. The stress of shipment and shipment injuries killed them. By the 7th day, I had lost 5 more poults to shipment stress. This is why I will change the way I purchase any new bird for our farm.
I was sick at heart but determined to do all I could for the remaining 7. They made it to the outside in what I thought was a healthy state, then it happened.
I had an excruciating experience with the turkey poults. One I’ve never had in 35+ years of poultry keeping or since. It was the dastardly disease, coccidiosis. We lost 5 turkey poults to this disease. I learned a great deal from the experience. Of the 15 we ordered, we had a healthy 16-week old tom, Cocoa Roo, and a hen, Crazy Cora.
Life With Heritage Breed Turkeys
When you have turkeys, you’re never bored. When they’re learning to fly, they would fly over the fence by accident. Oh! You’ve never heard such commotion as when they’re separated. I was always running out to catch and “rescue” whoever was over the fence.
Once they learn to fly, it’s no holds barred. Turkeys come and go as they please unless you have a covered pen. You’ll fall in love with these birds every day.
Notable Differences Between Chicks and Chocolate Turkey Poults
We had 15 Speckled Sussex chicks arrive three days before the Chocolate Turkey poults. There are some notable differences between chicks and poults.
The turkeys are larger and more aggressive than young poultry. By the time they are 3-4 weeks old, the turkeys are more laid back and the chickens are more aggressive.
Turkeys are slower to learn to eat and drink. With chicks, you dip their beaks once or twice and they’ve got it. I had to show the turkeys how and where several times before they began eating and drinking on their own.
Turkeys are extremely sensitive to environmental changes when poults. When you’re cleaning out the brooder or even their yard they let you know they’re not happy about it. If you move the food or water, you have to show them where you moved it a couple of times.
Any change in temperature, sound, or light will be precipitated by them letting you know they aren’t happy about it. Once they get around 6-8 weeks old, they are resilient and inquisitive.
Poults are much more inquisitive than chicks and become attached to their humans. You’ll notice this from about 3 weeks of age. At around this same time, they’ll start perching and roosting. I was amazed at their instinct and ability to flutter and perch at such a young age.
They are louder and more vocal than the chicks. Turkeys want to talk to you, sometimes for extended periods of time. If you’re outside and don’t acknowledge them, they’ll get louder and louder until you do!
Behavior of Heritage Breed Chocolate Turkeys
I read that turkeys are kind of “simple-minded, almost stupid.” I believe this may be true of domestic turkey breeds, commonly called commercial breeds, but not heritage breeds. Chocolates are smart, independent-thinking birds.
While they free range with the chickens, roost with them and eat with them, they seem to know they’re different. You’ll notice they will almost always flock together, like birds of a feather!
If one flies up or out, it will call to the others until they join them or until the calling one gives up and joins the others. They are so funny. Toms like to “boss” the hens by strutting and gobbling, in his best big boy voice. She likes to ignore him.
The tom will begin practicing his strutting as early as 6 weeks of age, but by 9 weeks, he’s ready to strut his stuff. The first time I saw it I squealed with joy causing him to stop immediately. Around 13 weeks of age they begin perfecting their grownup gobbling and other communication techniques.
Turkeys pretty much do what they want to do. If the gates are closed and they want to free range, they simply fly over. When it’s time to go to roost, they may be on the roost, but they may not. I believe this goes back to their instincts which tell them to roost up high at the end of the day wherever they may happen to be.
After they were about 20 weeks old, she would go to roost in the turkey tower my husband built for them. Sometimes he would be there, but usually not until after some coaxing. He knew where we wanted him, he just didn’t want to do it unless I made him.
Building Your Flock of Heritage Breed Turkeys
The main reason you’d want them to roost in a particular area is so the hen will feel safe in the coop so she’ll lay in her nest. You don’t want to have an egg hunt to find her laying spot. Turkeys are very good at hiding.
Turkey hens begin laying later than chicken hens. She won’t begin laying until she is about 8 months old. She also won’t lay as often as a chicken. Heritage breed hens will lay an egg every 3-5 days. On average 100 – 150 eggs a year.
We are sustenance farmers, which means we provide food for ourselves from our livestock. They are not our pets.
A lesson we carry on from my grandparents is that if it is meant for the table, it doesn’t get a name. We’ll eat those birds not chosen for breeding purposes.
Building a sustainable breeding flock of heritage breed turkeys takes time. To help ensure your Chocolate Turkey eggs hatch, you have to be selective in which birds are kept for breeding. You only want the strongest, healthiest, most productive birds to build the flock.
If you choose to raise heritage breed turkeys, you’ll find they quickly have a special place in your heart and homestead.
Hi Rhonda, I was wondering if you have any experience treating black head or knowledge of how to treat. I really appreciate your knowledge of raising these heritage breeds. Thanks!
Hi Dave, I am assuming you know for certain they have blackhead? I’m sorry to hear that as it can be frustrating to deal with and deadly to turkeys. Heritage breeds fare better than modern breeds, I’m not sure which you have. So, the first thing to do is isolate the affected birds if at all possible. If it’s not, follow these same steps just do them for the whole flock. 1. Provide them with ACV water (1-2 Tbs of raw, organic ACV in one gallon of water) give them this to drink until they stop wanting it then go back to plain water. 2. Worm your birds. We use garlic powder, oregano leaves (fresh – I prefer) or dried and diatomaceous earth sprinkled on their food. If you use chemical wormers, then you know you can get those at your farm supply store although I could not find any guaranteed to work on this disease. 3. If your turkeys are in a confined yard or run, change them to a new one. This will help break the cycle of infestation. Don’t use the contaminated yard for at least 6 months. If they are free ranged like our flocks, then this isn’t necessary as they move around. 4. To help avoid it in the future, be careful with cross contamination from your shoes or gloves from other birds or farms. 5. Unfortunantly, there’s no cure for Blackhead and all birds are exposed to eat. Your birds may recover with extra care but there are no certainties. I do hope you and your birds get through this. I hope this helps get you started on helping them. If we can help further, please let us know. Keep us posted on their condition please.
The best prevention for blackhead disease in my experience is cayenne pepper.
Hi Rhonda,
We just had our breeding pair of chocolates successfully hatch their first clutch of eggs. Out of it we have 6 adorable poults. Two of the six do not have any brown color at all. We don’t have any other turkeys on our small farm so I was wondering if you have ever had that? Our breeding couple Hershey and KitKat both look to be full bred and so are the breeders pair? Thank you so much for writing about these amazing birds because it isn’t always easy to find info.
Candace
Hi Candace, How exciting! It never gets old when new babies arrive, does it? I believe this is the result of breeding. It is probably a recessive gene somewhere in their lineage. It could be from Hershey and KitKat(great names btw) or from their parents or grandparents. Unfortunately, these two poults will not brown up. When these two are large enough, I would butcher them for eating. You don’t want them breeding. Hershey and KitKat will always have the chance of it happening again. Their offspring may also carry the gene and produce this type of poult.
You can breed this recessive gene out of your flock in a couple of ways. 1) Add another Chocolate tom or hen from a different lineage to the flock. This will decrease the likely hood of the recessive gene being passed on. It will take a couple of generations to get rid of the possibility. Always remove any bird from the flock you don’t want to breed, I’m sure you know this as selective breeding. (2) Keep the Chocolates you have and see if the gene is dominant in the offspring of the poults. I have to say the risk is high. Continue removing the different colored ones from the flock until the gene is no longer prominent. This way will take longer than adding a new lineage to the flock.
Like you, we work to keep this amazing heritage breed and you want it to be as pure as it can be. Thank you for your encouragement on the article. There is little information about them available and they are so amazing I can’t understand why that is! I’m updating the article today to add an audio file of an interview I did for the Homestead Livestock Summit. I hope you’ll listen and let me know what you think.
Let us know if we can help in any other way.
Do you sell any of the fertilized eggs or poults? I would be interested in buying some if you do. I purchased some from an online hatchery and am down to 2 babies left. The others all died for no reason, despite the fact that all 3 other breeds I got with them are thriving. Did you find that Chocolate poults are more fragile or sensitive than other turkey breeds?
Hi Pat, We do not sell eggs or poults. I hate you’ve had such a hard time with these treasures among turkeys. While I can’t say for sure why they died, I can say it was either shipment stress, disease, or something in the breeding. I don’t know where you ordered from, but some hatcheries are not selective in their breeding practices, which could be the problem. I did not find the Chocolate Turkeys to be more fragile than other breeds. Still, as we talked about in the article, heritage breed turkeys, especially those endangered like the Chocolates, are more delicate than chickens and seem to be more susceptible to shipping stress which breaks down their immune system making them more vulnerable to disease. Please let me know if I can help in any way and how your turkeys are doing.
Thanks for the reply! I still have the 2 so I guess I will HOPE for a male and a female as I cannot find any locally and do not want to try shipping again. Yours are very beautiful, thanks again.
Have you experienced any aggressive behavior w/ Chocolate TOMS?
I have two Spanish Black/Chocolate mix toms (8 months old; look almost 100% Spanish Black…)
I don’t feel that the Spanish Black genetics are the reason for their current behavior of approaching me …for the father is full Spanish Black and a sweet gem! But I’m a small backyard poultry person so I don’t have high numbers to compare/contrast and I’m wondering …
So basically in general, do you think Chocolate Toms have any inherent aggressive tendencies? Have you experienced this? Thanks!
Hi Claire, I have never experienced a Chocolate Tom being aggressive. He has ruffled up at me when she’s on the nest, but that’s about it. I don’t mind because I know he’s protecting her. In my experience, they don’t have any aggressive tendencies. That being said, there can always be the individual bird who breaks the norm. You can deal with any behavior you feel is out of line in the same way you do with an aggressive rooster. After you’ve read the aggressive rooster post, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or support you may need.
Do you have preditor problems with your turkeys free ranging and do they come back in to roost like chickens do?
Lori, Predators are a problem for turkeys just as they are with chickens. Turkeys have a slight advantage over chickens in that they can actually fly up into trees to escape. Also, just like chickens, you teach them where to roost and they will come back to it. They are independent minded so the toms may have to be coaxed when young but they eventually get that they have to and come on their own. Toms are usually the last ones to roost in my experience.
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