A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[duluthralphie]

Is this Bourbon red a female or male? Just about 4 months old. It is slightly bigger than the other Red, and it seems to always be redder on the head and neck. But I'm no expert at all!


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Funny Turkey story. This morning as I was in my bedroom, I heard my turkeys make quite a racket and I saw my Tom running down the driveway. I ran outside to find all of the young turkeys had seen the Mom across the street walking her kids to the bus stop, and were following her and the kids and beingnoisy. Thankfully, they are used to the turkeys and were just laughing at them. I had to herd them back home.

That one looks like a girl to me...

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Can you post a picture of the feed you use and the exact fermenting method you follow? Seems like a good experiment for me to do.

I started out by filling the bucket about 1/3-1/2 of the way full with feed and adding water to cover it. I kept adding water till the feed stopped absorbing it and was submerged. I stirred it twice a day (morning and night) for 3 day then started feeding it to them. I used to always mix it like that and used a plastic ladle with holes drilled in it to scoop it out but always leaving some in the bottom of the bucket to continue the ferment. I'd add back in how ever much feed and water I needed to get it back to that level for the next day. As I got more birds, I started making it in to a "muffin". Now, I add equal amounts of feed and water. It's not soaking in water when I scoop it now but is saturated. Same method. I use most of it but not all and add back in what I need for the next day. I still recommend starting the ferment with the submerged method because it's a lot easier to stir but once it's going, it's not necessary.

My feed is just a local, cheap feed from the mill. I get 100 lbs of 18% grower for just under $25. Here's my feed dry:

After being soaked and ready to feed:

When I open the garage door, they all come running:

Then when I throw a scoop out:

And if the garage door is left open:

 

[memphis]

AnnintheBurbs...looks like a hen. Cute story about the flock following your neighbors. O me of my hens chased after as jogger. The jogger freaked out.
BantamBird....I will not be showi by that video to my birds! They would be so jealous and try to order one from Amazon!
Last year when Annie went broody I would wet her feed, pick her up off the nest and she'd stand there & eat every piece. I swear she gained weight....

 

[R2elk]

Your hen is just now getting her mature breast feathers in. Dark feathered hens have a light colored lower edge on their mature breast feathers. Dark feathered toms had a dark lower edge on their mature breast feathers.

 

[R2elk]

This gal used to come in every year to get bred by one of my toms. She was a visitor for 7 years straight but failed to show up last year.

 

[casportpony]

This gal used to come in every year to get bred by one of my toms. She was a visitor for 7 years straight but failed to show up last year.

She's beautiful.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Thanks everybody for the help. I have another picture of my favorite, I will post tomorrow. I am hoping that one is a she, but today I noticed the Mohawk is disappearing from the top if it's head.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

This gal used to come in every year to get bred by one of my toms. She was a visitor for 7 years straight but failed to show up last year.

What a stunning girl! Hopefully she isn't gone for good but if she is, that's a pretty long life for a wild turkey. What color tom? There may be all sorts of different colored wild turkeys parading the forest lol

 

[WVduckchick]

Reading today's posts have been really therapeutic. Thank you so much.

Today is a sad day. My avatar passed away about 6:30 this morning She snuggled with me this morning when I got up, went and got a drink and laid down by the door and went to sleep. When I came back in she was gone. DW is devastated. Sorry for sharing the sad news.

Prancer RIP August 8, 2005 - September 17, 2017... So sorry if this offends anyone.

So sorry for your loss.
(and i apologize for bringing it back up, if I made it worse by doing so)

Let me share a story about rancid feed... I used to buy a turkey starter that looked and smelled like it had way too much fat or oil in it.

One brooder had ducklings and chicks in it, and those ducklings made a wet mess of the food, so bad that it started to smell rancid afte a few hours, but I ignored it and just cleaned the brooder once a day.

After few days of this to of the chicks started behaving oddly, much like the videos of chicks with "crazy chick disease", so I separated them, treated them with vitamin E, tube fed, and they recovered in two days.

I researched crazy chick disease and came to the conclusion that this is what they had and that they got it from this poorly made food that went rancid.

My fault for ignoring the smell and feeding something that seemed not quite right, so many lessons learned on that, and I no longer buy food made by that company/mill.

Makes you a little leary too huh.
I went for feed last week, my local Ag store didn't have my normal flock raiser, said they had "house layer", so i bought it. Half the price, so i even got an extra bag, 150# instead of 100# ($9.70 for 50#bag). I thought heck yea! Till i poured it into my bin and it looked like scratch. I filled the feeders with it once each, and the dust from it looked like a cloud over the feeders. Took it to the farm for the lav orps. They aren't as picky.

But now seeing Aurora's, maybe i should have gone ahead and used it. It just didn't look right. :/

 

[OneMountainAcres]

So sorry for your loss.
(and i apologize for bringing it back up, if I made it worse by doing so)



Makes you a little leary too huh.
I went for feed last week, my local Ag store didn't have my normal flock raiser, said they had "house layer", so i bought it. Half the price, so i even got an extra bag, 150# instead of 100# ($9.70 for 50#bag). I thought heck yea! Till i poured it into my bin and it looked like scratch. I filled the feeders with it once each, and the dust from it looked like a cloud over the feeders. Took it to the farm for the lav orps. They aren't as picky.

But now seeing Aurora's, maybe i should have gone ahead and used it. It just didn't look right. :/

I would never be comfortable feeding what I do without at least soaking it first. It definitely has a lot of powdery stuff in it but it clumps together and sticks to the grains once soaked/fermented