Recent content by Deep Roots

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    Processing turkey for the first time.

    Hardest thing is slitting the throat well so they go fast. Chickens are quick and easy. Turkeys you need a very very sharp knife and you need to find the artery with your finger before you start slicing. The moment their heart races the artery almost retracts as their neck muscles contract to...
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    How Much Room Do BB Turkeys Need?

    A good fence and a guardian dog and you will be fine. We had an owl attack this year, but that was it. We do 1/4 acre per 40 turkeys. We finish them on pasture right around a full acre for 100 or so birds. The trick is don't wait to move them till the grass is gone. Move them after it looks...
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    Heritage Turkeys

    We use a 20% all flock and all our birds get the same feed. Poults get 28% for the first 8 weeks. After that everyone is on the same feed. As to breeds. We raise Heritage Bronze, Royal Palm, our own hybrids, and a few others. The Narragansett are a little smaller than royal palm. We prefer...
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    Is it possible to breed a Heritage tom to a Broad Breasted hen, successfully?

    We have been raising and breeding turkeys for 4 years now. We purposely crossed royal palm and heritage bronze and got some fantastic hybrids which brood well, are decent mamas, and get a little larger than either the royal palm or the heritage bronze. We have gotten requests for birds 30lbs+...
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    Cotton Thread Suture Removal - How many days? if any?

    Hey folks. Didn't have the right thread (since ordered a full suture kit on amazon) so we used cotton thread on a full thickness laceration on a turkey. Y shaped about 3-4" Sutured it closed with four laps. It's 100% cotton. Should I removed the stitches? Let it break down normally? Silk...
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    How many sq feet per turkey?

    We have a 16’ coop thats 2x6 construction up off the ground. Completely enclosed. Everyone except ducks goes in there at night and we lock it. Two turkeys decided not to go in and make a nest outside of the pasture and the enclosure. Both were eaten in less than a week. Strong fence of woven...
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    How many sq feet per turkey?

    Huge! 20 birds can decimate pasture even with supplemental feed. We have plans to expand our 1/2 acre to 2 acres for roughly 40 turkeys. Pasture rotation is a must. We were told we could pen the turkeys. The first year it lasted two months before the stink and unhealthy living conditions made...
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    New to birds in southern ohio.

    Bought a farm a few years ago in near Cincinnati. It was a run down overgrown dairy farm. We have started poultry and really enjoy turkeys. We have a big market garden and other animals as well. Jon
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    Clutch #2 Struggling a bit

    Clutch 3 started lockdown on day 26... they are still hatching now. I'm hoping this is the last one. It's day 34... Yeah... We thought we had half duds and yet every morning there is another poult. Any ideas why this is happening? Low temp during first three weeks maybe?
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    Clutch #2 Struggling a bit

    We have books, magazines, and lots of info on the web and no one location as the scientific approach of logging weight, percents, temp, etc... So frustrating to hear from so many different authors and folks online there isn't really a comprehensive source. Most of the articles and how to are...
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    Clutch number #2 struggling

    This is really helpful. Just spoke with a lady near us that doesn't even use water in the incubators because our humidity is already so high. Just adds a bit for lockdown. Thats really helpful. I'm going to start weighing this next clutch and draw the air cells. We were not that great on...
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    Clutch number #2 struggling

    Okay. I vented the one in lockdown and reduced water. The still air one has two humidistat. One says 50 one says 70... thoughts on that? What is sticky chick? Symptoms?
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    Clutch number #2 struggling

    Two diff incubators. Still air one for 3 weeks then lockdown and hatch in a normal one. Humidity is 85 for hatch and the still air is somewhere between 50 and 65 depending on which humidistat. I also posted on turkey thread and have been reading everything I could get my hands on. tks
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    Clutch #2 Struggling a bit

    We are on our 2nd clutch of turkey eggs. At day 28 nada. But we could have written down the wrong date. So we gave them two more days. 4 hatched within 20hrs. All eggs pipped. Now we are two full day past the first lil guys. Number 5 poult really struggled to get out of the shell. The membrane...
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    Clutch number #2 struggling

    Could use some input from y'all.
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