Interactive lesson

Housing for turkeys and guinea fowl, step by step

Interactive lesson: a dry floor, a high perch and a fence the fox can't clear — site, building, perches and litter, the run, bringing guinea fowl home, protection, winter and summer.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Space and site

A turkey needs plenty of air and a dry floor; a guinea fowl roosts as high as it can.

Floor per bird — Turkey hen 0.6 m², stag 0.9 m², guinea fowl 0.3 m² of house floor.
2 m high — The house is at least 2 m (6½ ft) high, for turkeys and for guinea fowl.
Dry and facing south — A dry, free-draining spot, slightly raised, never in a hollow. Openings face south or south-east, back to the cold wind (in Britain and Ireland usually the north and east).
Away from chickens — Away from the chicken house and uphill of it on a slope, so run-off doesn't flow towards the turkeys. Away from wells and springs, and never uphill of them.

Why: Turkeys in a low, stuffy chicken house get respiratory disease and breast blisters. Guinea fowl that can't find a high enough perch go to roost in the walnut tree until one night an owl takes them.

Never keep turkeys with chickens. Turkeys and guinea fowl can share a house, but in separate sections.
If you keep turkeys only from May to December, a covered mobile house or part of a shed with strong mesh and dry litter is enough.

2. A 2 × 3 m house

A 6 m² wooden house is enough for 6 heritage turkeys or 15–20 guinea fowl.

Base and floor — Concrete pads or stones at the corners, floor 20–30 cm above ground. For turkeys the best is concrete or a wooden floor with deep litter.
Frame and cladding — Timber of 8 × 8 or 10 × 10 cm (3 × 3 or 4 × 4 in), cladding of boards or OSB.
Roof and window — Sloping roof with a 40–50 cm overhang. A south-facing window gives light and dries the litter; cover it with mesh.
Air under the eaves — Openings on both long sides, roughly one tenth of the floor area: for 6 m² about 0.6 m², covered with 1–1.3 cm (½ in) mesh.

Why: It is 2.2 m high at the front and 1.9 m at the back, with a mono-pitch roof. Turkeys breathe out a lot of moisture and their droppings are wetter than hens', so the house needs more air than a hen house.

If you keep both turkeys and guinea fowl, build 3 × 3 m with a mesh partition and two doors.
If you smell ammonia in the morning or see drops on the roof, there is too little air.