Clipping Turkey Wings

The turkey poults we're growing for folks for Thanksgiving are now 4 weeks old. One of the things about turkeys is that they fly very well when they're young. Heading into the brooder building, we're almost guarnteed to be greeted by a few poults roosting high on top of the fencing that's supposed to keep the chicks and poults in.

So after dinner tonight, Carla and I went out to clip some turkey wings.



This is a old/heritage breed of turkey, the Standard Bronze. This little guy will be magnificent when he grows up. He'll look like the cheesy pilgrim turkey decorations (without the pilgrim hat) that abound during the holidays. Carla is holding his wing out to display the flight feathers.



You can see this poult's (a bourbon red) wing after being clipped. Feathers are like hair, so as long as we don't trim them too close, it doesn't hurt the birds in the slightest. We only trim one wing; this throws the bird's flight off balance, and they can't get to far. If you clip both wings, they'll just flap harder to get where they need to go. We clip the right wing, so that way we can easily see if any birds have missed thier hair cut.