dvereckis
In the Brooder
I have raised and butchered turkeys, chickens, geese and ducks for the last couple years. My wife and I have 5 children (It will be 6 in around a week), we raise our birds to provide meet and eggs for our family.
Two years ago we bought 34 white turkey and 20 laying chickens, 31 turkeys lived to butcher and 11 of the 20 chicks were roosters. Our first year turkeys were all female (supposed to be mixed) and cleaned out at 25-28 lb our noisy roosters were butchered at around 5 pounds to get our towns bylaw officer off our back
(sorry sir we didn't know you aren't allowed 30+ turkeys and 20 chickens in town).
Second year we still have a rooster and ten hens stashed away from the previous year. I hatched a little rooster in a fish tank with a light bulb on our kitchen counter (named him Remnant as 1 egg of the 20 I started with lived) . We also purchased 35 turkeys, 4 White Danish geese, 4 Peking ducks, 30 laying hens (one turned out to be a dude-named him Rasputin) and 12 1/2 acres outside the town line. We also started using an old Troybuilt Tomahawk 2 wood chipper as a hammer mill to break up grain for mixing our own feed. We built a completely covered 50"x 20"run for our birds and a small heavily insulated laying coop. Our property is not serviced so the coop is heated by chicken body heat and we change the water daily. The coop is insulated well enough that the water does not freeze even in a northern Manitoba winter. Our ducks and geese are far to messy to stay with our chicken so they have wintered in a small shelter at another property we own were they have a heat lamp and a heated water dish. Of the 35 turkey we bought only 11 survived the first month and one white leghorn chicken turned herself inside out and died at the start of her lay. Other than that the rest did well and one of the surviving turkeys was a tom, he weighed in at 49lb live and 39lb cleaned, 3 of our 4 geese were boys so we butchered 2 and of our 4 ducks there was only one drake so we kept them all. Our birds are treated to large quantity's of fresh greens daily and in the fall all the windfall fruit we can rake up around our town as well as as much feed as they can eat. They seem to do well and even our large turkeys (that survived the first month) are very healthy without any cripples.
This year I just bought and fixed up a Leahy 300-E redwood incubator. My first test run in the Leahy should start hatching in 2 days, of the 16 eggs I started with only 11 were viable. Considering that the eggs came out of an unheated coop in northern Manitoba in January I think those are bang up numbers. I am planing on adding around 30 more layers to my flock and hatching 100 to 200 chicks to butcher. I also plan to purchase 30-50 turkeys this year.
So hi all and have a great year.
Ben
Two years ago we bought 34 white turkey and 20 laying chickens, 31 turkeys lived to butcher and 11 of the 20 chicks were roosters. Our first year turkeys were all female (supposed to be mixed) and cleaned out at 25-28 lb our noisy roosters were butchered at around 5 pounds to get our towns bylaw officer off our back
Second year we still have a rooster and ten hens stashed away from the previous year. I hatched a little rooster in a fish tank with a light bulb on our kitchen counter (named him Remnant as 1 egg of the 20 I started with lived) . We also purchased 35 turkeys, 4 White Danish geese, 4 Peking ducks, 30 laying hens (one turned out to be a dude-named him Rasputin) and 12 1/2 acres outside the town line. We also started using an old Troybuilt Tomahawk 2 wood chipper as a hammer mill to break up grain for mixing our own feed. We built a completely covered 50"x 20"run for our birds and a small heavily insulated laying coop. Our property is not serviced so the coop is heated by chicken body heat and we change the water daily. The coop is insulated well enough that the water does not freeze even in a northern Manitoba winter. Our ducks and geese are far to messy to stay with our chicken so they have wintered in a small shelter at another property we own were they have a heat lamp and a heated water dish. Of the 35 turkey we bought only 11 survived the first month and one white leghorn chicken turned herself inside out and died at the start of her lay. Other than that the rest did well and one of the surviving turkeys was a tom, he weighed in at 49lb live and 39lb cleaned, 3 of our 4 geese were boys so we butchered 2 and of our 4 ducks there was only one drake so we kept them all. Our birds are treated to large quantity's of fresh greens daily and in the fall all the windfall fruit we can rake up around our town as well as as much feed as they can eat. They seem to do well and even our large turkeys (that survived the first month) are very healthy without any cripples.
This year I just bought and fixed up a Leahy 300-E redwood incubator. My first test run in the Leahy should start hatching in 2 days, of the 16 eggs I started with only 11 were viable. Considering that the eggs came out of an unheated coop in northern Manitoba in January I think those are bang up numbers. I am planing on adding around 30 more layers to my flock and hatching 100 to 200 chicks to butcher. I also plan to purchase 30-50 turkeys this year.
So hi all and have a great year.
Ben
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. So glad you joined us.
