Rearing turkeys in Ghana for the December market: poult care, feeding phases, space, blackhead and why turkeys stay away from chickens, timing and selling.
Halaal Farms Ghana team4 October 2026 · 13 min read
The turkey a family carves on 25 December was a poult in the brooder somewhere between April and August. That gap, four to eight months depending on the type of bird, is the first fact of turkey farming. Buy the poults too late and you sell half-grown birds at a discount, or feed them through January when hardly anyone is buying. Almost every other decision follows from the calendar.
Turkeys repay care. Each bird is worth many times what a broiler is worth, which also means each death hurts more. The losses come at two points: in the first three weeks, when poults fail to start, and later from blackhead, a disease that turkeys catch from chickens. This guide takes you from the order date to the sale, with most attention on those two risks.
Start with the week you intend to sell, usually from about 10 December, and work backwards by the rearing time of the birds you are buying.
| Step | Local-type turkeys | Fast-growing broad-breasted strains |
|---|---|---|
| Typical rearing time | Six to eight months | About four to five months |
| Poults arrive | April to early June | Late July to mid-August |
| On heat | First five to six weeks | First five to six weeks |
| Growing period | June to October | September to November |
| Take orders and deposits | From October | From October |
| Sale | Second and third weeks of December | Second and third weeks of December |
Treat these as planning ranges. Growth depends heavily on feed quality, and birds reared in heat on chicken-type feeds take longer than a breeder's brochure suggests. Add two or three weeks of margin. A turkey that is ready early can be held on a maintenance ration. One that is too small on 20 December cannot be hurried.
Hatcheries are busiest for festive stock in the middle of the year, so book poults well ahead of the arrival date. Our article on when to order chicks for Christmas, Easter and Eid shows the same back-planning for cockerels, broilers and guinea fowl.
Two kinds of turkey are reared in Ghana, and they behave like different animals.
Local-type turkeys are the black, bronze and mixed-colour birds seen in compounds across the country. They grow slowly, forage well, cope with simple housing, mate naturally and the hens sit on their own eggs for the 28 days turkeys take to hatch. Their lower feed demand suits a semi-intensive system where the birds graze during the day.
Broad-breasted strains, white or bronze, have been bred for fast growth and a heavy breast. They reach large weights in far less time, but only on high-quality feed, and they are less forgiving of heat, poor litter and rough ground. Heavy males put strain on their legs and need more floor space and softer bedding.
Neither is the better bird in every case. If your buyers want a big bird for an office party and you can afford the feed, fast-growing stock makes sense. If you are selling live birds to households and have land to graze, local types are cheaper to carry. When you order, ask which type the poults are and what age and weight to expect at sale.
A turkey poult is larger than a chick but slower to work things out. Chicks peck at anything. Poults often stand next to feed and water without touching either. Those that never start are called starve-outs, and they die quietly between about day three and day six, once the yolk they hatched with is used up. Brooding turkeys is mostly about preventing that.
Have the brooder at 35 to 37°C at poult height before the birds arrive, and lower it by about 3°C a week. Poults generally need heat for five to six weeks, longer than broilers. Read the birds as well as the thermometer: evenly spread and busy means comfortable, a tight heap means cold, and poults pressed to the outer edge with open beaks are too hot. A cold poult stops looking for feed, so chilling and starve-out often arrive together.
An old piece of advice says to put a few chicken chicks in with the poults so that the poults copy them. Do not do it. It works as a teaching aid, and it also brings in the disease risk explained in the blackhead section below.
Brood in a ring with no corners, because frightened poults pile. Cover the litter with rough paper or hessian for the first days, since smooth surfaces cause splayed legs, then keep them on clean, dry wood shavings. For ring materials and layout, see our chick brooding guide. The same build suits poults, with the warmer start and longer heating period given here.
Turkeys grow a large frame and a great deal of muscle, and their protein need in the early weeks is higher than that of any chicken. The need falls as they age, which is fortunate, because protein is the expensive part of feed.
| Phase | Approximate age | Protein level to aim for | Practical option where turkey feed is not sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Hatch to 8 weeks | About 26 to 28 per cent | Good broiler starter as the base; ask a feed mill or nutritionist about a higher-protein mix |
| Grower | 8 to 16 weeks | About 20 to 22 per cent | Broiler starter or grower type feed |
| Finisher | 16 weeks to sale | About 16 to 18 per cent | Finisher or grower type feed, with grazing for local birds |
A few points make the phases work:
Turkeys eat a lot in total. Budget for it before you buy poults, using the sum near the end of this article.
Crowded turkeys peck each other, foul the litter and grow unevenly. Use the figures below as minimums for deep-litter housing and give more in hot weather.
| Age | Floor space per bird | Birds per square metre |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 weeks | About 0.1 m² | 10 |
| 5 to 8 weeks | About 0.2 m² | 5 |
| 9 to 16 weeks | 0.3 to 0.4 m² | About 3 |
| Over 16 weeks, hens | About 0.4 m² | 2 to 3 |
| Over 16 weeks, toms | 0.5 to 0.7 m² | 1.5 to 2 |
So a room of 4 by 5 metres, 20 square metres, finishes about 30 to 40 toms, not the 200 broilers the same floor would carry.
The house itself can be the open-sided type used for chickens: a low wall, mesh above, a roof with a wide overhang and the long axis running east to west. Keep 8 to 10 cm of dry litter on the floor. Heavy birds resting on a bare or wet floor develop breast blisters and sore hocks, which spoil the carcass.
Turkeys like to perch. Provide thick, rounded poles 50 to 60 cm off the floor, low enough that a heavy tom does not injure his legs jumping down. A fenced yard with shade, used from about eight weeks in dry weather, improves leg strength and cuts feed cost. Young poults must not get wet. Keep them under a roof until they are fully feathered, and shut older birds in during heavy rain.
Blackhead, properly called histomoniasis, is the disease that ends many small turkey projects. It is caused by a microscopic parasite that attacks the caeca (the two blind pouches of the gut) and then the liver. In turkeys it can kill most of a flock.
The parasite is fragile on its own. It survives by hiding inside the eggs of a small caecal worm that is very common in chickens and is also found in guinea fowl. Those birds carry the worm, and often the parasite, with few or no signs. Their droppings seed the soil with worm eggs, which stay infective for a long time, well beyond a year in favourable conditions. Earthworms take up the eggs and pass them on to any bird that eats them. A turkey that pecks at contaminated soil, droppings, litter or an earthworm becomes infected. Once one turkey has it, the parasite also spreads directly from bird to bird through fresh droppings in the litter.
Birds of any age can be affected, and young growing turkeys are hit hardest. On post-mortem a vet finds round, sunken, target-like patches on the liver and caeca plugged with cheesy material. If you see yellow droppings and drooping birds, call a vet or the district veterinary office the same day. Treatment options for this disease are limited, which is why prevention carries nearly all the weight.
These are part of ordinary farm hygiene. The low-cost measures in our guide to biosecurity on a small farm apply to turkeys with extra force.
Chicks from Halaal Farms Ghana are vaccinated at the hatchery before they leave. Ask what your batch of poults has had, then take that to your vet and agree a programme for the rest of the rearing period. The local vet sets it. The conditions most often discussed for turkeys in Ghana are:
None of these should be treated by guesswork. A turkey is too valuable to medicate on a neighbour's advice.
Turkey demand in Ghana is concentrated. Most birds are bought in the two weeks before Christmas, with some at Easter and a thin trade for weddings and parties through the year. Plan the selling as carefully as the rearing.
Work out your cost per bird before you order. The figures below are examples to show the method. Replace each with your own.
| Item (example) | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Poult | From GH₵ 65 (our starting price on 2 October 2026; prices change) | GH₵ 65 |
| Feed | A 9 kg tom that ate 3.5 kg of feed per kg of weight = 31.5 kg, at an example GH₵ 8 per kg | GH₵ 252 |
| Heat, litter, vaccines, deworming, labour (example) | Your own estimate | GH₵ 40 |
| Share of losses | If 2 poults in 20 die, each survivor carries one-ninth of a poult plus the feed the dead birds ate | About GH₵ 10 |
| Cost per bird sold | About GH₵ 367 |
Feed is about two-thirds of the total in this example, so the feed-to-weight figure is the one to measure on your own farm: weigh a sample of birds monthly and keep a count of bags used. Grazing lowers it for local birds. Poor early growth, wasted feed and holding birds past Christmas raise it. You can run your own prices through the poultry profit calculator to see the margin at different sale prices.
Halaal Farms Ghana supplies turkey poults and delivers to all 16 regions. The current starting prices are on the price list. Send the order form or call 024 915 1503 with your intended sale date, and we will confirm the hatch date, price and delivery cost before you pay, and tell you what the batch has been vaccinated against.
Local-type turkeys commonly need six to eight months to reach a good festive weight, so poults should arrive between April and early June. Fast-growing broad-breasted strains on proper feed can be ready in roughly four to five months, which means late July to mid-August. Ask your supplier which type the poults are before you fix the date.
They should not share a house, a yard or equipment. Chickens and guinea fowl often carry a small caecal worm that harbours the blackhead parasite without making them ill. Turkeys that pick it up from droppings or contaminated soil can die in large numbers. Keep turkeys on separate, clean ground, use separate boots and tools, and attend to the turkeys first.
Turkey poults do best on a starter with more protein than chicken feed provides. Where no turkey starter is sold, most farmers use a good broiler starter and accept somewhat slower early growth. A feed mill or animal nutritionist can advise on a higher-protein mix. Do not use grower feed, layer mash or plain maize for young poults.
The usual reason is that they never started eating or drinking. Poults are slower than chicks to find feed and water, and those that fail die between about day three and day six when the yolk reserve is used up. Bright light, feed spread on paper, coloured marbles in the drinkers and dipping each beak on arrival prevent most of these deaths.
Written by the Halaal Farms Ghana team. We hatch and import day-old chicks at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and deliver to all 16 regions. This article is general guidance for farmers. For diagnosis and treatment of sick birds, speak to a vet or your district veterinary office.
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