Beltsville Small White Turkey

I received my first SBW poults from Julie Gauthier and am excited to see them grow. I'm curious if anyone has experience with her line. I'd love to show and breed. The babies at two days and one week. I'm tracking weights and growth rates.

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So, I just got an email from her. Her SBW are from the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, GA. Apparently these came from the lab in Ames, IA.

Chic Doc, this seems to be an excellent start for my SBW project. Do you agree and do you have any suggestions?
 
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I am really interested in this turkey breed, but I'm wondering how you manage your turkey and chicken flocks so you don't end up with blackhead? Anyone have suggestions? I live within driving distance of Jerry Poole, but I haven't ever seriously pursued turkey eggs because I am worried they will all get sick and die as we keep a large mixed flock of chickens and ducks. Advice or experiences to share?
 
I am really interested in this turkey breed, but I'm wondering how you manage your turkey and chicken flocks so you don't end up with blackhead? Anyone have suggestions? I live within driving distance of Jerry Poole, but I haven't ever seriously pursued turkey eggs because I am worried they will all get sick and die as we keep a large mixed flock of chickens and ducks. Advice or experiences to share?

From what I have heard/know is that if you have blackhead you would have to house them separate and keep the turkeys somewhere the chickens have not been for years. But if blackhead is not present then they could live happily together. I have housed my chickens and turkeys together for a couple years with no problems till recently. I now have theme separate for different reasons(chickens free range and come back turkey aren't as good with this and have loss some to predators).
 
We had a pair of midget whites a few yrs ago (hatchery type) and only rarely got a fertile egg from the hen. They were friendly but later both started attacking people when we had family visiting. I would never judge based on just 2 birds though since we have had birds for many years and aggressive birds can happen occasionally in just about every breed. We have beltsville whites now, jerry poole line, but they are only 2 months old so can't really tell the difference yet compared to midget whites. They desperately want to be free range but I don't want them becoming hawk bait.
 
Country Hatchery in OK has stock from Poole (Albertsen line) and possible some birds that might be these birds crossed with Donnelly-Albertsen stock.
Albertsen's stock came from ISU-Ames circa 1967.

Cirrus Hil in Canada is offering Ames line.
Descended from The stock I got from The USDA-NADC in Ames back in 2004.

BT

After getting eggs on eBay from Jerry Poole, I ended up with all hens. I bought some poults from Country Hatchery, the hens matured slightly larger than the hens that I hatched. I sold all of the hatchery turkeys except one tom, I only bought them so that I could have a tom anyhow.

I looked up Cirrus Hill, they are claiming that Beltsvilles are extinct in the US. Endangered I could believe, but extinct?
 
jerrys line isn't extinct. I got 2 batches at 2 different times in 2016 from jerry and I have been breeding and selling eggs since 2017.they are increasing in numbers. to find the true jerry line is getting harder since he isn't doing them anymore. ;( so it seems like what is out there is what we have to work with. they are amazing birds....
 

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