A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[memphis]

Love it when the Tom's become involved fathers! LOL

Where is everybody? Recovering from the holiday?

How is Annabelle doing??
R2elk, the wild one still hanging out?
Aurora, wanna see more pictures of the penciled bunch. They are getting so pretty!
All of you with poults...where are the pics? Y'all know I'm living vicariously down here!!

 

[Flashpoint]

Hi Everyone! Hope everybody is still safe(r) from the snow, rains, monsoons, blizzards, and power outages. About all it has done here is rain, rain, wind, rain, wind, rain. Power has been intermittent, but I do have a little generator that will run the fridge, computer, (incubators last week), heating plates, and the coffee pot.

My hatch was not good. At all. Pretty disappointed (and beyond) along with a great deal of frustration.

I don't know if it was weather related or something else, even though I am set up to start my generator within minutes. Yet, out of 32 eggs, I removed 10. 8 chicken and 2 turkey due to blood rings. Of the remaining eggs, I have 9 live chicks. My temps were steady and humidity was fine. But I have never ever had a hatch this bad! I have hatched several batches (but not hundreds), so not sure what happened.

I lost all my special midge white eggs with the exception of one that was hatched with a broken yolk sac - did not survive.

Out of the rest of the eggs, only 9 made it. Out of that 9 - 6 of them were "sticky chicks". I had never had a sticky chick before, so that was an experience I hope never to have to repeat.

Extremely disappointed. (sigh)

 

[duluthralphie]

Hi Everyone! Hope everybody is still safe(r) from the snow, rains, monsoons, blizzards, and power outages. About all it has done here is rain, rain, wind, rain, wind, rain. Power has been intermittent, but I do have a little generator that will run the fridge, computer, (incubators last week), heating plates, and the coffee pot.

My hatch was not good. At all. Pretty disappointed (and beyond) along with a great deal of frustration.

I don't know if it was weather related or something else, even though I am set up to start my generator within minutes. Yet, out of 32 eggs, I removed 10. 8 chicken and 2 turkey due to blood rings. Of the remaining eggs, I have 9 live chicks. My temps were steady and humidity was fine. But I have never ever had a hatch this bad! I have hatched several batches (but not hundreds), so not sure what happened.

I lost all my special midge white eggs with the exception of one that was hatched with a broken yolk sac - did not survive.

Out of the rest of the eggs, only 9 made it. Out of that 9 - 6 of them were "sticky chicks". I had never had a sticky chick before, so that was an experience I hope never to have to repeat.

Extremely disappointed. (sigh)

This year and last have both been disappointing hatches. I am convinced or convincing myself it is weather related. We had a terrible spring last year too.

My temps and humidity are tight. My hatches are not. I even tried increasing my hatcher humidity and I still get heat wrap shrinking...

I think your right on the botulism R2elk. I bought a bag of game bird starter at TSC. I needed it to get me by until I could get to the feed mill.

They did not have it on the floor but a worker said he thought they had a bag in back. I used it on this group of birds when they were smaller and lost 4-5 to the same thing. I figured I got bad feed and threw the bottom third away. Everyone was fine (the three I had left) until this one started acting drunk.

I suppose it has been festering in him for a month and finally got to be too much. I do know two of the remaining three are not growing as fast as they should.

Teach me to shop at TSC.

 

[Eric Exley]

i'm having really good luck with my chicken eggs (as always), but for some reason i have trouble with duck and turkey eggs (i put 8 in an incubator 2 hatched and the rest died days before they were due to hatch), for my chickens I incubated 20 eggs (10 leghorn crossed with Light Brahma, and white Dúccles, and 10 eggs from a buff cochin bantam hen crossed with the same white Dúccle rooster) and 6 hatched from the Leghorn (4 were infertile), and the other 10 were under the Cochin hen herself and she hatched out 9 (of course in both groups all the chicks are white except for one pure black one under the cochin hen).

i'm a bit worried that my turkeys are not breeding i have a 2nd batch of turkey eggs in the incubator (cant remember if i put 21 or 22 eggs in) and after 1 week i candled and looked like non were growing (i'm also suspecting delayed growth because of the power being out for 2.5 hours) during the first week...
My Golden Narragansett Tom is my pride and joy of my flock since he is the only one that takes food from my hand, and guards my chickens, and i had gotten him 2 Narragansett hens (they are pure Narragansett hens because their previous owner had bought them as day old poults from a hatchery) and they have never been with a Tom except for my Big Tom... But i have a feeling they have not been letting him breed them for the past few weeks, so i am a bit concerned about the fertility of the eggs

as for the duck eggs i had gotten them from a nest that i found out the mom was killed (there were only 11 eggs in the nest) so i set 6 under my goose to hatch, and 5 in the Incubator, as soon as 2 weeks came for the Goose, snakes find the nest and leave 2 eggs in her nest (they were infertile), and of the 5 in the Incubator 2 hatched (one was a Muscovie, and the other appears to be a Rouen) but currently my goose is guarding my broody cochin hen and her chicks (they are separated since the chicks are bantams and the goose has huge feet and she could injure if not kill the chicks trying to protect them)

 

[Molpet]

Love it when the Tom's become involved fathers! LOL

Where is everybody? Recovering from the holiday?

How is Annabelle doing??
R2elk, the wild one still hanging out?
Aurora, wanna see more pictures of the penciled bunch. They are getting so pretty!
All of you with poults...where are the pics? Y'all know I'm living vicariously down here!!

 

[memphis]

Molpet....so cute. Gotta love a momma with babies!

 

[R2elk]

R2elk, the wild one still hanging out?

The wild one is gone. It may have something to do with whatever came in and killed my 11 year old Blue Slate hen a few days ago. Whatever it was spooked a Sweetgrass hen off of her nest the same night but did not bother her eggs. The old hen was pretty crippled because of several sessions of bad matings with a tom. Unfortunately the only traps I had were rusted and worthless so I had to make a trip to town for new ones this morning.

 

[memphis]

Oh no R2elk...not the old gal! I know they aren't "pets", but after 11 years ya gotta admire her. Sad news....I rather admired her. You may need another Walker. They do their best work at night! I never realized so much was wandering into my backyard once the sun goes down. I didn't intend to mention this...but he got a stray cat the other night. Whoops. At least its it's a quick kill. Dont mean to gross as anyone out.
Gosh I hate you lost the old girl....

 

[memphis]

Was it a big animal R2elk? Could you tell anything about it? Interested to see what it is. Hopefully you'll get it quickly.

If I had some6killing my birds, I'd have my turkeys crated in the house. Sad...but true...

 

[feedman77]

@R2elk sorry to hear about your losses. Maybe you'll catch the culprit.

Maybe a sign of too much water in my area. Had a river otter in the pasture I keep my birds in. No losses so far predator wise. Dont know if otters eat chicken or turkeys. If they do hope he doesnt find mine. He can to my pond and eat fish.