Getting Blue Slates as pets, curious about temperament!

[Sparrow]

I just special ordered 2 Blue Slate and 2 Red Bourbon Turkeys through my feedstore. They are supposed to be here in 2 weeks. I am very excited about it, and I have read so many good things about turkeys as pets here! It seems the Red Bourbons are generally very friendly birds, but I can't find much information about the temperament of Blue Slates. I think they are very beautiful and have wanted some for years since I saw them at the fair. Anything you can tell me about their general temperament would be great!

 

[chickensioux]

I'm curious to see what responses you get. I too am waiting for blue slate babies for pets. My understanding is that they are quite docile. I plan to spend alot of time with mine (handling, etc) in hopes that she will be sweet and friendly. Good luck to you with yours. Mine are due Wed this week.

 

[Shaun]

We have just one Blue Slate hen, named "Swan" She was our only hatchling from a batch of mail order eggs. We had two others that developed fully, but never hatched. Sigh. We hatched her at the same time as some chicks, so we put her under a broody hen with the rest of the chicks. Remember the story of the "Ugly Duckling"? Well, she was the ugly chick, so she got named "Swan". We think she's beautiful.

Swan is a character of the nth order.

Very friendly, calls out and runs or flies to us any time she hears us outside. Because a lone turkey will starve to death, we raised her with a couple of poorly hatched chicks - nicknamed the "Misfits" She "adopted" them, even though they're the same age, and until recently these two hens would tuck up under her wings to sleep at night.

Swan has never shown any temper, except to a young Black Aussie Rooster that tried to throw his weight around. She gave him one look, leapt up in the air landing neatly on his back, did the turkey version of the Mexican Hat Dance on this back and gave him a peck on the head for the grand finale. Wish we would have had the video camera out!!

We have a two year old granddaughter who loves to pet Swan. All in all, we love her, and as we have more eggs (and some chicks given our poor hatch history ) coming, we're hoping she'll get a bit broody (she's already laying eggs) and adopt any babies we get!

I'm curious where you are in the country - none of our feed stores ever carry heritage birds!! We're having to drive 3 hours one way to get ours!

 

[chickensioux]

I ordered mine from Lazy 54 Farm in Oregon. They sex their birds for you too.

 

[Sparrow]

Thanks for the replies! Swan sounds absolutely lovely! I hope mine will turn out so great.

I actually special ordered mine through Feldman's Farm and Home in Kansas City, KS. They are really nice there...I'm a regular now.

They order their chicks through Cackle Hatchery, and normally only carry BBWhite and BBBronze Turkeys in the store. They will let me order pretty much anything that they don't normally carry, though. Really good place to buy peepers.

 

[pdpatch]

Blue slates aren't to bad, mostly like red burbouns, But the can fly higher and don't wonder off quite as far as a buroun will. But they are some what of a forager so they will have a tendancy to wonder further away.

They can be some what high stung behaviour if in pens. they will pace back and forth trying to figure out how to get out.

Hens are better behaved the the Tom's.

Tom

 

[sandspoultry]

We had some Blue Slates a few years ago and they were on the calm side- we didn't have them that long, about 8 months. They were given to us by a friend. We passed them on to somebody else as most Blue Slates don't breed true (some do but they are rare and take alot of selective breeding of generations). The offspring will be Blue or Blue flecked with black or Black.

Steve in NC