Royal Palm

Bought two of these from Cackle, one died a mysterious death in the brooder, and that should have been my first clue. The one that survived never stopped strutting, all year long. He was pretty for about a year, and then something happened. I found a dead hen in the house, obviously from cannibalism, so I bought some pick-paste, made sure to loose the birds early every morning, kept their feed and water full ect. But it kept happening. The rooster seemed to defend the hens, but when he died from a raccoon break-in, everything just went downhill. The last one standing was the turkey. Then he took to pacing the fence, wondering where everyone had gone! I have had turkeys before, but had never had a single problem with cannibalism. However, this has boosted my enthusiasm for Turkey Season.

Royal Palms are great I really don't have anything bad to say about them. They can be a little bossy to other birds by chasing. They get along with mostly anything or anyone. I would 100% buy another Royal palm turkey. Hope this helped!

I bought a 1-yr-old Royal Palm tom from a BYC member, but it turned out that he was horrendously ill. He escaped quarantine after a few days of rigorous antibiotic treatment, and finally (weeks later) seems like he might be more or less recovered (we had to find where he was roosting and continue dosing him nightly). We named all of our turkeys this year for dragons, so his name, due to respiratory issues, is Puff the Magic.

Puff's about 3ft tall and at most 10lbs. His lovely plumage is starting to come back in (former owner tore a bunch of it out when the luckless boy tried to escape as he was changing hands). He is a very pretty bird. After raising only broad-breasted birds, he seems almost more like a flamingo than a turkey to me He has such delicate features--especially his long, skinny legs and toes! He's like a pianist trying to mack on body-building drummer babes. We have roosters who are bigger than this tom. Reportedly, Royal Palm's clean like giant old flat-chested hens, so it's a good thing we didn't buy him for his ample muscles.

Hopefully, he'll be able to get his manly duties done with our three pet broad-breasted hens because they're antics trying to make baby turkeys are pretty noisy, pathetic and sadly funny all at the same time. He's largely ignored their attempts to get his attention, but as he feels better, he does seem to be taking more of an interest in them (but now they don't know what to make of him). We're hoping that a crossbreed will have merit as a table bird, lawn ornament and pet while having a slower muscle growth and (typically) better health of the Royal Palm.

His personality does seem to be coming around as rather friendly, but he wasn't handled since he was a chick at his previous home, and likely distrusts us given our insistence at shoving needles into his chest and sinuses. Thankfully, table scraps, bread and pancakes, along with liberally loving on the other birds and speaking in soothing tones around him seem to be helping a great deal, and he now gets within a few inches of my outstretched hands. Within a few weeks, he might even take treats from my hands, which is pretty quick progress considering the circumstances.



***Royal Palms--even ones in poor health--can beat you pretty badly with those wimpy looking feet and wings***

***They can also FLY***

*Just something to keep in mind*
We've found that, while he does sometimes fly over the fence, he won't be gone long (if he can help it) because the other turkeys can't fly, and he can't bare to be alone.