Setting Up My Crazy Simple Pastured Turkey Operation

It's the Fourth of July. Can you tell? Having a big party. Happy Fourth of July! Can you say freedom?

Freedom!

You wanna go outside?

Let's go outside.

What you got going on right there? I am making a gigantic cake for today. I've always wondered what happened to lightning bugs during the day.

Look!

There is one.

Just chilling. Can we go to the fruit field so we can get a peach?

Does the peach tree have fruit?

Yes, a little bit. It has a peach.

Is it ready? Leave it if it's not ready. I think it is.

There's a sap.

Is it soft though?

No.

You want to wait?

Sure.

Let's wait. 2 and a half gallons. Good job. I brought the milk back. You guys got to see this though. Some improvements to your electric bike. Give us a tour.

Turn signals.

Nice. Do they work?

Yeah.

There you go. Show us what else.

Headlights.

Headlights.

Then some really nice brakes that work a lot better than the old ones.

There's disc brakes. Let's see what it's got. So proud of that kid. Look at this cake! You're giving him some 2.5 gallons pretty much on the 4th of July. That's great. Can you think anything more freeing than having a family cow? No, because this is like 16, 32, uh, 40 pounds of food right here. We have decided we're not gonna eat Phyllis. We are retiring her from this farm. We are actually gonna sell her. She just gave 2.5 gallons. I think she would make somebody a good starter family cow. So if you're in Abundance Plus, you want to be checking out the marketplace soon. We're going to be listing her there. We're going to get another cow that's going to be younger, more efficient, uh, have 4 teats. Phyllis is down to 2 teats. We need more than— I mean, 2.5 gallons is a lot, but we need a lot, so we need more than that. T-birds, you ready to be free birds? Independence Day, we are gonna free the T-birds. But first, let me show you how you would set up a brooder. First, the brooder setup. This is a Bulletproof brooder setup. It's a 4x6. We've got Tractor Supply fine pine shavings as bedding. It's gotten pretty thick. It's, it's, it's up to here. This is actually giving off heat because it's breaking down in the compost. We already had this stall, so we converted it to a rat-proof brooder. Half-inch mesh doors, like legit outdoor doors. But you could do a bin just like this. We put tin around it so the rats can't get through. We put the door 18 inches up. You only have to switch out bedding, well, when this basically gets full. It is becoming a problem for the turkeys because they start jumping over into the other brooder. Put a power outlet there for when they were young for the heat. If you had to build one, I would do 4x6 in your garage perhaps, and I would have an opening roof right here. You don't need this kind of roofing. It's just we already had the stall built. First thing you want to do for maintenance, or setup I guess, is get get your stuff out of the way. You want to cover the area with a layer of shavings. First thing you can do to set it up is put this homemade dirt trap. It's 1/2-inch wire mesh on a 2x4 frame with a couple of 2x2 braces in the middle. This gives them a platform to jump up on, the shavings and any other dirt fall into the bedding and not into the water. You may have to bury that when they're young. And what I mean by buried is dig in around in the mulch and make this level with the ground. Right now it's up high and it's no problem because they're big, but when they're little they can't jump up on there. Next up is an organic turkey starter. That's an organic feed from New Country. They ship. A lot of times you can't get organic where you are? Well, New Country ships. Next up, our water. That's a little 3-gallon vacuum seal water from Little Giant. 20 birds in there leaves us 8 casualties, which rarely happens, to give us 1 turkey a month. So it means we can sell some turkeys or give some away, trade, whatever. Don't ever forget to take the cap off. You have to step up on this cage. And any shavings they track fall off. There's one more very important thing. Turkeys don't have teeth. We're gonna get them some rooster teeth, which is basically creek sand and rocks out of our creeks. We're about to free these birds. We're gonna take them out of the brooder and put them out in the field. We're gonna be bettering our pastures for our cows. First, let's get him occupied on the string trimmer. That's what he wants to do. What am I going to do, argue? We use these Premier One pig nets for the turkeys. You got them? Yeah, they're super easy to move. You can step right over them without turning the fence off, and the T-birds don't get out. The phrase should be T-birds don't get out a lot. We need to set our turkeys right here, so give me a square Just like that. We're gonna put the T-birds on a weaker part of our pasture. This pasture doesn't do as well as some of the best stuff. See our Sea Monsters down there? Our Cornish Cross meat chickens? Yeah, they've tracked through here. Look at this. Okay, Sea Monsters. Sea Monsters in the manure. No Sea Monsters in their manure. Before. After. On this farm, the family cow is the centerpiece And everything complements it. Everything works around it. How do we use sea monsters, turkeys, gardens, pigs to complement the cow? This spot where they're coming will be forever greener because of these T-birds. The cows will thank us. Time to dust off the old turkey shaw. We borrowed its wheel for something. I guess we'll just grab the wheel off of the Mini-Me. We're not using it right now. The turkey shaw. We're using a 100-foot net. We are having to use a rubber mallet because it has not rained in so long, the ground is very compact. Run our electricity to the fence. That's almost it. We like to feed, water, and the T-birds. Let's not forget the grit. We've set up a soccer field T-posts for goals. Lily's got a little place for the fans. It's gonna be fun. Let's get our stuff.

We won't need the dirt trap anymore.

Hang tight, guys. Trust me, it's the best day of your life right here. Okay, look, it's already taken to its perch. Wait, man, you know how to throw a party, babe. She's got hibiscus tea. I've only got 4 days left, 60 days carnivore. Can you believe that, Rebecca? I'm down to 172.4 from 188. I'm thinking I need more water since I'm on the carnivore diet than I'm used to. Cut up the watermelon for everybody. It's that or introduce some carbs. I'm waiting till 6— I'm 4 days away, then I'll introduce some carbs. I'm gonna be very careful about it. It's probably gonna be something mild like squash. 8 grams of carbs for a whole entire yellow squash. I put half a teaspoon of potassium. I put half a teaspoon of Redmond's. Jacob, I'm down 16 pounds, man. I can tell. When am I going to be jacked up, Justin? I would say 2 weeks, 4 days a week for 2 weeks, I'd say. Really? Yeah, just 2 more weeks. We just started a 4-day-a-week program. We got to get rid of all resemblance of the dad bod. Basically, for 60 days on carnivore, my back has been much, much, much less sore. My feet haven't hurt nearly as bad. It's not all gone away, and a lot of my candida is gone. What you getting? I'm gonna get tomatoes. What are you gonna do with the tomatoes? Salsa? No. Or tomatoes on burgers?

Burgers.

Dang, babe, I didn't know Roma tomatoes could get that big. Oh wow, it's just falling off the vine. Hey, you're gonna get to the roof with some of these, babe. So big. Oh my word, Lily. Is that— is that Lily?

Yep.

Okay, our friends have arrived.

Time to eat.

Dessert time. Just the dessert squad. Rebecca, how'd your cake turn out? I think it turned out really good.

I'm excited to taste it and see.

This your contribution, Lorraine?

Yeah, nice gluten-free banana bread.

You get the honorary piece, babe. You did good. It's your good party patriotic toppings.

Mucho sloppy.

And you see she's sneaking doing this with some of the other adults before the kids find out. It won't take them long to find out. It's peaceful in here right now. They're eating cake. I got lemon in my water. Okay, here's Heather. Heather's our COO at Abundant Permaculture. I need to talk to her about our next book. I'm thinking this, this size, hardback. But one thing I really like about this is— I don't know what it is. It's some sort of build that this sits flat.

Oh, it lays flat.

It lays flat. Nice. And on purpose. Our next book, a design book that includes the pretty shawl, uh, the turkey shawl that we moved this morning, the chicken tractor, all those things. Right now a lot of people are using my plans and it's making their life a lot easier. Like, this will make homesteading so much easier, so much more accessible. And right now you kind of got to find the plans on a website or under a particular video, but how about let's get them all in one place on a book? And it's gonna be more than a book, we're gonna do a course. Uh, we're working out the details on that, but we'll have our own Homestead Design Course, HDC. Do this round and then we're gonna play soccer. Okay, don't move, remember your number. 1, 2, 1, 1, 2. Okay, we got this, guys. We got it. We got this, guys. I feel like we have big edge. Uh-oh, they have Ben, they have Nathan. Uh-oh. Have you ever played soccer before, Jason? Probably not since high school. All right, you got the goal. Okay. All right, whenever you are ready. It's halftime. We got a point, scored it in the last 2 minutes. Joyful, are you sweating or are you, uh, wet? I'm wet. Okay, 3 to 2, we won.

Ah!