6 Best Books On Raising Turkeys Naturally That Old-Timers Swear By
Discover 6 essential books on raising turkeys the natural way. These guides, sworn by old-timers, offer proven wisdom on heritage breeds and flock health.
Before you can raise a healthy flock of turkeys on pasture, you need more than just a bag of feed and a patch of grass. You need a different way of thinking—one that sees the birds, the land, and your goals as a single, interconnected system. The best guides for this mindset aren’t new; they’re the well-worn books that have guided homesteaders for decades.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you!
Why Old-Time Turkey Wisdom Still Matters Today
The internet is full of quick tips for raising turkeys, but most of it misses the point. It treats the birds like widgets in a production line, focusing on feed conversion ratios and processing dates. Old-time wisdom, captured in classic homesteading books, offers a fundamentally different approach. It’s about understanding the "turkeyness" of the turkey—its natural instincts to forage, roost, and socialize.
This older knowledge is built on observation and resilience, not just efficiency. It teaches you how to work with the bird’s nature, using its scratching to till your garden beds or its foraging to reduce your feed bill. This approach creates a more robust, self-sufficient system. When you understand the principles behind why a heritage turkey thrives on pasture, you can solve problems on your own instead of searching for a quick fix online. It’s the difference between following a recipe and actually knowing how to cook.
Storey’s Guide: The Modern Homesteader’s Bible
If you only buy one book on raising turkeys, it should probably be Storey’s Guide to Raising Turkeys by Don Schrider. This book is the closest thing we have to a complete A-to-Z manual for the small-scale farmer. It covers everything from selecting the right breed for your climate to setting up a brooder, diagnosing common health issues, and processing the birds humanely.
What makes it essential is its balance of practical instruction and deep respect for the animal. It doesn’t just tell you what to do; it explains why. For example, instead of just giving you a feed formula, it explains the nutritional needs of a growing poult and how those needs change, empowering you to make smart choices whether you’re buying commercial feed or mixing your own.
The sections on breeding and incubation are particularly valuable for anyone looking to create a sustainable flock. It demystifies the process of selecting good breeding stock and managing a broody hen. This is the foundational text that gives you the confidence to handle every stage of a turkey’s life cycle. It’s the book you’ll pull off the shelf year after year.
Ussery’s Small-Scale Flock for Natural Systems
Harvey Ussery’s The Small-Scale Poultry Flock isn’t strictly a turkey book, but it’s required reading for anyone serious about raising poultry naturally. Ussery’s genius is his focus on creating a closed-loop system where your flock is an integrated part of the homestead, not just a separate project. He teaches you to see your turkeys as workers that can build soil, manage pests, and turn waste into valuable protein.
This book will change how you think about feed. Ussery pushes you beyond the feed store, showing you how to grow your own fodder, cultivate soldier grubs, and ferment grains to maximize nutrition and cut costs. He provides practical plans for building things like a "vermi-feeder" that allows birds to harvest their own worms. It’s a masterclass in creative, low-input animal husbandry.
While Storey’s guide is the "how-to," Ussery’s book is the "how-to-think." It’s less of a step-by-step guide and more of a philosophical framework grounded in deep ecological principles. If you want to move beyond simply feeding birds and start truly partnering with them to build a more resilient and productive homestead, Ussery is your guide. His ideas are the difference between a person who keeps turkeys and a person who farms with them.
Salatin’s Pastured Poultry for Profit Model
You might see Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profit$ and think it’s not for you because you’re not raising birds for sale. That would be a mistake. While the book is framed around a business model, the principles of pasture management it contains are pure gold for any homesteader. Salatin revolutionized the way we think about raising poultry on grass.
The core of his system is intensive rotational grazing using mobile shelters, often called "turkey tractors." This method concentrates the birds on a fresh "salad bar" every day, which maximizes their forage intake, spreads their manure evenly, and breaks parasite life cycles. The result is healthier birds, richer soil, and a drastically lower feed bill. Salatin’s detailed plans for building these shelters are worth the price of the book alone.
Even if you don’t build a perfect Salatin-style tractor, the underlying principles are universally applicable. The key takeaway is movement is life. Keeping your turkeys on the move prevents overgrazing, reduces disease pressure, and actively improves your land. This book provides the blueprint for turning your turkeys from simple livestock into powerful tools for land regeneration.
Beck-Chenoweth: A Deep Dive into Pasturing
For those who want to go beyond the basics of pasturing, Herman Beck-Chenoweth’s Free-Range Poultry Production & Marketing is a fantastic resource. It dives deep into the nitty-gritty of managing a truly free-ranging or extensively pastured flock. This isn’t about a mobile pen on a lawn; it’s about managing birds across larger, more complex landscapes.
Beck-Chenoweth tackles the hard questions that other books sometimes gloss over. He provides detailed information on different forage crops, explaining which ones are best for turkeys at various life stages. He also offers some of the most practical, no-nonsense advice you’ll find on predator protection in an open system, from guardian animals to electric netting strategies. This book is for the farmer who has mastered the basics and is now looking to refine their system for maximum health and productivity.
The Urban Homesteader for Small-Space Flocks
Not everyone has acres of pasture. If you’re raising turkeys in a backyard or on a small lot, the principles of natural farming still apply, but the execution has to be different. A book like The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen provides the right mindset, even if it isn’t turkey-specific. It’s about applying ecological principles within tight constraints.
The key is to think vertically and intensively. Instead of rotating turkeys across pasture, you might use a deep litter method in their run, continuously adding carbon materials like wood chips or straw. This composting system manages waste, eliminates odors, and creates rich soil for your garden. You can supplement their diet by growing fodder crops like comfrey or amaranth in containers and creating a soldier fly bin to provide a constant source of live protein. This is about creating a miniature ecosystem in your backyard.
APA’s Standard of Perfection for Breed Choice
This one might seem out of place, but the American Poultry Association’s Standard of Perfection is one of the most important books you can own. It’s not a guide on how to raise turkeys, but a detailed description of what each recognized breed should be. For the natural farmer, this is critical information.
When you raise turkeys on pasture, you need birds with the right genetics for the job. You need a heritage breed like the Bourbon Red or Standard Bronze that knows how to forage, is a good mother, and has a strong, well-proportioned frame. The Standard of Perfection teaches you what to look for. It details the ideal body conformation for a bird that can walk, run, and mate naturally—traits that have been bred out of commercial varieties. Choosing the right genetics is the first and most important step in natural turkey raising, and this book is the definitive guide to making that choice.
Choosing the Right Turkey Book for Your Flock
There is no single "best" book; there is only the best book for your specific situation and goals. The right choice depends on where you are in your journey and what you want to achieve with your flock. Think of these books as a toolkit, with each one serving a different purpose.
Use this as a guide to get started:
- For the absolute beginner: Start with Storey’s Guide to Raising Turkeys. It will give you the comprehensive foundation you need.
- For the systems thinker: Read Harvey Ussery’s The Small-Scale Poultry Flock to learn how to integrate your birds into your entire homestead.
- For pasture perfection: Use Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profit$ to master the art of rotational grazing and land management.
- For choosing the right bird: Consult the APA’s Standard of Perfection before you ever buy a poult to ensure you’re getting hardy, self-sufficient genetics.
Ultimately, the goal isn’t to follow any one author’s system perfectly. It’s to absorb the principles from each of them. Take Salatin’s ideas on pasture rotation, combine them with Ussery’s approach to alternative feeds, and use Storey’s guide as your go-to reference for day-to-day problems. That’s how you build a system that is resilient, productive, and perfectly suited to your own land.
The best turkey farmers I know have dirt under their fingernails and a well-worn bookshelf. These books won’t give you all the answers, but they will teach you how to ask the right questions. In the end, your own flock and your own land will be your greatest teachers.
