A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[R2elk]

The Blue Slate hen has adopted the older poults.

 

[Huntmaster]

The Blue Slate hen has adopted the older poults.
View attachment 2704513

Those poults look like there about 4 to 5 weeks old did you have any trouble with them taking to hen at that age

 

[R2elk]

Those poults look like there about 4 to 5 weeks old did you have any trouble with them taking to hen at that age

It took her at least a full day to get them to accept her. The poults are about 3 weeks old.

 

[Huntmaster]

It took her at least a full day to get them to accept her. The poults are about 3 weeks old.

Yes I have found you usually know pretty quick if hen is going to except poults . But can take a few days or more sometimes for poults to except her.

 

[R2elk]

Yes I have found you usually know pretty quick if hen is going to except poults . But can take a few days or more sometimes for poults to except her.

If the hen starts pecking at the poults, it is time to get her out of there. If they are cooing and pleading, I walk away.

 

[yesterDAYNE]

I have one of my lilacs who will NOT break broody, so I finally gave her the other hens' eggs to sit on. Wish I could let her raise them, but I don't have a separate pen and I don't trust her not to trample them since her sight isn't very good, lol. Last year she went broody with 2 other hens and finally quit shortly after the eggs hatched out and I collected the poults.

 

[austria89]

I am just going off of the information on Porter's Recessive Slate page.

"It seemed best to use sl for this slate gene. These types of slates carrying the bronze color base gene have barred flight feathers and penciled tail feathers."

Ok, now I understand the confusion. The "penciled tail" does not refer to the pencilling gene, which is a separate mutation and can only express in BWB birds. The text must be seen in the context of the 1930s, when there was no pencilling (pn) mutation around.
Asmundson was working with dominant and recessive slated birds and the biggest difference is, that rec. slates, other than dom. slated ones, do show a wing and tail pattern.

 

[austria89]

He is a beautiful tom!

Thanks!
I was working for a long time on different pencilled varieties, and this one is my favorite so far. I will also make a brown version (instead of the blue), but this will take two more years to be finished.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Those poults look like there about 4 to 5 weeks old did you have any trouble with them taking to hen at that age

My tom adopted 6-8 week old poults when I added them to the flock a couple years ago lol. It was not planned, they were just being added because they were getting older and he gathered them up under his wings and cared for them lol

 

[OneMountainAcres]

I have 3 broodies right now. I blame the husband who was doing a lot of the coop chores for me over the past couple days and not collecting eggs :/ Of course Pebbles is involved and you all know she won't break until she gets babies... she will starve herself to death if I let her. Also Sky for her first time and Princess who is always a part of a broody bunch lol.