Heritage & Exhibition Turkey Thread

[KrisH]

2 of my hens have started laying eggs, but I haven't seem them mating with the toms. I was wondering, what if the toms don't know how to mate since it's their 1st year and they don't have any experience and they haven't seen other toms mating so they don't know how to do it????

Kind of like teenageers, they probably figured it out, but don't want yoy to know

break one open and check, you may be surprised.

RobertH

 

[ashandvine]

Thanks Eliz. She has a nest and we covered it with a box big enough for her but not for him to get in. We gate her in that area because its easier at this point but next year it may be different. If I make it that long.
Question: This thread says 'exhibition,' but I have only seen turkeys shown at the Springfield show. I've never seen anyone do it here. Is it much different than showing chickens?

 

[Elliemae 77]

Hi there,
I will be picking up two heritage turkey poults tomorrow. I hope it's early enough in the year to give them enough time to mature for Thanksgiving. Just in case, can someone tell me which of the heritage turkeys mature the fastest? I have these breeds to choose from:Bourbon Reds, Narragansetts,Bronze, and blue slate. I bought a trio of Narragansett poults that hatched last May and fed them an all you can eat buffet as well as let them free range. Lost my tom to a coyote, I went to butcher one of the hens a few days before Thanksgiving and by the time I was done plucking it looked more like a bat than a turkey...no breast meat at all. I thought she seemed a bit slight before I butchered her, but this is my first experience with turkeys and i really didn't know how plump they should be. What a disapointment. Well, I did some reading after the fact. So now I know that I butchered her too soon and I guess I should have confined her more. Sooo now I'm down to one hen and she has laid a dozen or so eggs. But now she is starting to hang out in the nest box. Which brings me to my next question....When do hens usually go broody, and if I stick a couple poults under her will she adopt them and be a good mamma being she's less than a year old?

 

[elizmartin]

Hi, well if the eggs may be fertile and she does accept the poults then she won't consider the eggs important. I think most birds try to lay some kind of number of eggs then sit...Sometimes they will get off and eat or range but come back and the chicks will hatch fine.

 

[jenjscott]

Thanks Eliz. She has a nest and we covered it with a box big enough for her but not for him to get in. We gate her in that area because its easier at this point but next year it may be different. If I make it that long.
Question: This thread says 'exhibition,' but I have only seen turkeys shown at the Springfield show. I've never seen anyone do it here. Is it much different than showing chickens?

Not much different than chickens, just harder to handle and transport. Some shows don't have turkey sections, but mostly it hard to get exhibitors because of the handling/trnsport problem.

 

[Feike]

Okay ....I found a Tom.....yes he's been doing his dance but I haven't seen them mating yet....hen is 1 1/2 year young, tom is 3 yrs old....but now I'm going to hurt some feelings a friend of mine wants to put her blue slate hens in with my RB ......actually it makes me wonder what color they'll be? does anyone have pics of this color?

 

[hobbychicken]

I am hatching out blue slate turkeys. My hens are black and the Tom is blue with black specks. The problem I am having is all the blue poults die the day after they hatch or die in shell right before they hatch. All the black poults hatch and do great. What am I doing wrong or is this some kind of fluke?

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

that is interesting... how many are we talking about here??? where did you get your birds from??? sometimes a certain gene will make a bird weaker but i have never heard that with the blue slates...

 

[hobbychicken]

that is interesting... how many are we talking about here??? where did you get your birds from??? sometimes a certain gene will make a bird weaker but i have never heard that with the blue slates...

.

I have 4 black ones going strong and just opened the last two up that were suppose to hatch yesterday both blue and dead in shell. That makes a total of 7 dead blue ones. I had one blue hatch about 2 weeks ago with 2 blacks and it was dead the next morning. I got my Tom from cackle last year. The hens came from a lady local that got the breeding pair from a guy in Georgia. I am confused and it seems something is wrong. If my incubation was off none would hatch right?

 

[hobbychicken]

Oh I forgot to also say that all the eggs so far are out of the same hen. I have the first ones out of the other hen to hatch the second. If they all hatch I am going to find the one hen a new home.