I was going to process ours - but i found a place that was about a 45 minute drive to process the turkey. Price was $11 when all was said and done - killed, bled, plucked and all dressed out and ready for dinner! it was AWESOME! i was on the fence about next year, but having such an easy way to...
i have my turkey within city limits. this has been my first one, a BB Bronze. I think first - consider you long you'd like to have them. If you're looking for rapid baby bird > Freezer, BB is the way to go, however the BB varieties are more likely to have health issues/leg issues/ etc, so it can...
ok - so
- process Sunday
- rest (in the fridge) Sunday thru Wednesday
- Wednesday evening remove from fridge and place in ice water bath
sound correct?
i found the percentages once, so i made a spreadsheet that i could track the weight on and differences, feed changes, etc... here's the weight scale i came up with...
or here:
http://poultryshrinkbags.blogspot.com/2011/06/blank-3.html
these actually look awesome! if i had to freeze some turkeys, this is what i think i'd be getting.
i'd go for it. Ground turkey is so tasty and useful... i think we'd get more use of ground turkey than one roasted. i think next year i might do 2 turkeys - one for dinner and one for grinding. I thought about roasting half and then grinding the other half, but the butcher shops won't do...
the highest protien feed you can find.
getting the Blue Slate turkey to 15 lbs by the end of october seems like a lot. i think my turkey was putting on something like 1.25 ~ 1.35 lbs per week at that age. say you have roughly 6 weeks and the turkey is currently 3 lbs, you'd need to average 2...
i think if it's respritory you should be OK. you may want to try a round of tetracycline in the water for 10 days. my turkey had something going on, sneezing/coughing/ making this funny noise, and just feeling lousy, no strutting, etc. I put him on a round of this for 10 days and things cleared...
i was feeding my turkey a 50/50 feed & cracked corn mix but i wasn't getting the weight gain that i wanted. THey'll probably get by but i think if you want to see the turkey thrive and gain meat mass, then a higher protien feed only is what was recommended to me.
my thoughts would be to cull. it might sound harsh, but with animals i think the quality of life needs to be heavily evaluated - and in this case it seems to be greatly deteriorated. It sounds like you've given the turkey a wonderful and caring environment which is all we can do.
Just an update - in case others have a turkey making this noise. I think it was a respritory infection of tsomething. i started to give tereacyclene (sp?) - he's at day 9 of 10 in the treatment and sounding and looking ALOT better. WAY more lively and chipper, strutting, etc. much more...
Necropsy was my first thought - so good move on that one.
Parasite control:
While you're waiting for results, you could maybe get some cayene pepper in their food and water to clear out parasites from their digestive tract.
Bacterial Control:
Another possibility is a antibacterial...
yeah, thats what i'm hoping for... a little feedback from them would be excellent.
I've been keeping an eye out for swelling around the eye and sinus cavity, discharge around the nasal passages, etc - but so far none of that.... it sounds like tylan is a good thing to have on hand - IF he begins...
OK - so the smoke has cleared out and the turkey has been on ACV for a few days now, but still making the same slurping noise. Does anybody have some recommendations? Should i let it ride - maybe its just part of his charming personallity? Should i get him on some type of antibiotic? Do turkeys...
OK, i got some game bird feed - 22% - that was the highest they had. I'll supplement too with some HB Eggs or something. Should I continue to have the 16% layer pellets available for my chickens and the 22% for the turkey, or just have them all on 22%?
awesome feedback! thanks very much. I'll cut out the corn and get the 30% feed back into his system and continue to track his progress. Thanks very much again everyone!