A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[yesterDAYNE]

This bird appears to have a conical snood, whereas it's siblings has a dangling snood. Hatch date was June 14th.

Hen's snoods generally sit up on their heads, they only lay down sometimes. Most of my hens with smaller snoods have theirs up most of the time. It's hard to see the snood here though because it's a tad blurry haha.

 

[R2elk]

indeed. I was thinking this. Sounds like broad breasted crossed with palm or something. My royal palm hen is something like 11 or 12 lbs. She is 10 years old, so she won't be getting any bigger.

I got a Royal Palm hen from a neighbor years ago that was every bit as big as my Bourbon Reds, She also lacked the normal flighty mannerisms of a normal Royal Palm.

 

[R2elk]

This bird appears to have a conical snood, whereas it's siblings has a dangling snood. Hatch date was June 14th.

Can't tell anything from that out of focus picture.

 

[KF0002]

Any pictures from the polt months?

I got him from my friend when he was already feathered but when he showed me pictures of the penciled poults they were yellow with dark markings, unlike the other sweetgrass, fall fires and red sweetgrass which were pale yellow with the grey dorsal stripe. Some of his birds also throw palm so those are solid pale yellow.

 

[KF0002]

The Sweetgrass are getting smaller due to the infusion of Royal Palms. The only difference in color genetics between a Sweetgrass and a Royal Palm is the Narragansett gene that Royal Palms carry. If you need to bring in fresh bloodlines to Sweetgrass, you can do so by breeding a Sweetgrass tom to Royal Palm hens. All the female offspring will be pure Sweetgrass because a Royal Palm hen cannot pass her Narragansett gene on to her female offspring. You eliminate all the male offspring because while pheontypically they will be Sweetgrass, they will all be carrying one Narragansett gene.

I plan on eventually infusing one line of my sweetgrass with a slate tom. The parents of my slate jake are big and I don't want to risk size by using palms to infuse the line too much. I am going to linebreed so size is hopefully maintained. It will take a couple of years to breed back to the sweetgrass once I breed in the slate but hopefully it will add some genetic diversity and vigor. I will keep a watchful eye for hidden recessives coming from the slate. He looks to be a black based slate, but could potentially be a barred black.

 

[R2elk]

I plan on eventually infusing one line of my sweetgrass with a slate tom. The parents of my slate jake are big and I don't want to risk size by using palms to infuse the line too much. I am going to linebreed so size is hopefully maintained. It will take a couple of years to breed back to the sweetgrass once I breed in the slate but hopefully it will add some genetic diversity and vigor. I will keep a watchful eye for hidden recessives coming from the slate. He looks to be a black based slate, but could potentially be a barred black.

The reason everyone uses Royal Palms is because the only difference in the color genetics is the Narragansett gene.

Using a Slate (BB CC Dd) or a Barred Black (Bb CC) will make a mess that is difficult to breed to get back to a Sweetgrass (b1b1 cgcg dd).

 

[Bantambird]

These poults belong to the lady on the right, but there are about 5 total hens assisting in the care of her ten poults.

 

[SarahGfa]

He's just bad at breeding in his older age. Stomps on their backs over and over again, slips on their wings, stomps on their heads. Tries to mount them from the front??? Lays on them to take a break. He also keeps getting hung up in the straps of their saddles somehow which poses it's own problems >__<

Oh that is sad. Now that it's almost autumn, won't he naturally stop breeding and the hens stop sitting down for him?

 

[SarahGfa]

Could a broody chicken adopt 3-day-old poults? my brooder isn't big enough to hold 15 poults so I might need chicken hens to help. My chickens have hatched turkey eggs for me and did a good job with the poults but I have never tried grafting an already-hatched one.

 

[R2elk]

Could a broody chicken adopt 3-day-old poults? my brooder isn't big enough to hold 15 poults so I might need chicken hens to help. My chickens have hatched turkey eggs for me and did a good job with the poults but I have never tried grafting an already-hatched one.

I do not recommend letting a chicken raise poults. The imprinting that happens causes the turkeys to lose the ability to understand that chickens are not turkeys.

Due to the size difference and the instinctive behavior differences it usually ends up with bad things happening to the chickens once the turkeys are mature.