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Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz
Lower Saxony and Bremen
Calenberger Straße 2
30169 Hannover
Website: External link to the authority
Robust-Turkey - Organic turkeys for direct marketing
Lower Saxony ist one of the biggest producers of poultry in Germany. Mainly in the west poultry keeping is very important. Poultry keeping is done exclusively on highly specialized farms. The used turkey-hybrids are very challenging in feed and management. Besides these specialized farms there are also lots of smaller, diverse stuctured farms in Lower Saxony, which are often managed organically. For these farms turkey-keeping is not an option at the moment. Organic turkey-keeping is only realized on a very small scale, because the common races are too challenging for organic husbandry conditions. Alternative races are also not suitable, especially relating to hygienic conditions. Aim of this project is to find an crossbreed turkey by using on the market existing turkey-genetics an old turkey-races. The robust-turkey should be healthy, robust and usable for extensive husbandry conditions. The slaughter-weight should be 4 to 6 kg so that the turkeys can be sold in direct marketing. Beside this upbringing by hand ore by nurse-turkey should be compared.
In this project it could be shown that crossing turkeys of the old breeds Ronquiöre and Cröllwitzer with hens of the hybrid breed Hockenhull Whirral White results in crossbred animals that produce slaughter weights in the range between 3-5 kg. However, the animals showed a high variability in weight, since in practice it was hardly possible to let the mating groups run with cocks of only one old breed for the whole time. Keeping parent animals outdoors has proven to be easily implement, provided the correct hygienic precautions have been taken. The „robust turkey" crossbreeds could also be raised well by inexperienced fatteners. However, in practice there was sometimes a greater willingness to fly and rear up than known with fattening turkeys.
The comparative trials in the rearing showed that the hand reared turkeys were generally quieter than turkeys reared by nurses. The animals reared by nurses were more active and showed increased exploratory ...(see final report).
Rural development 2014-2020 for Operational Groups (in the sense of Art 56 of Reg.1305/2013)
Kompetenzzentrum Ökolandbau Niedersachsen GmbH
Bahnhofstraße 15 b
27374 Visselhövede
Phone: 04262/959369
Email: s.kuschnereit@oeko-komp.de
2019
completed
480,030