Heritage Turkeys ~Different varieties, different personalities?

[GardenerGal]

I'll vouch for Bourbon Reds being the most curious. My tom used to follow me around all the time on my chores and make little noises like he was trying to figure out what I was doing. It wasn't just about food.

 

[chickenannie]

My Bourbon Reds want to hang with people most of the time. Very lovely birds.

 

[Honey1]

Thanks for all the good info.

I've been trying to decide between Royal Palm, and Narragansett.
I'd love to split a shipment. I really only want a few birds.

 

[chickygirl2]

My 2 toms are a royal palm-"Stouffer" and a bourbon red named" "Bourbon". I had a female, but she was taken by a fox about 2 months ago.
Both of my boys I hatched from eggs. They are both very friendly and gentle. : )

 

[meriruka]

I've decided to hatch a few Narragansett's this spring. Is it a bad idea to get the eggs from a hatchery like McMurray's?

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
Nothing against Murray or any other hatchery but that is what you are going to get is hatchery stock. They don't breed for quality. They are interested in getting them out the door as fast and as many as possible. For roughly the same price you can get them from a breeder that has been working with them.

Steve in NC

 

[chickenannie]

Sandspoultry, you know a lot of heritage turkeys, and I have a question -- one of my Bourbon Red juveniles has a hurt leg and I want to know what you'd advise.

I don't know what happened but the hurt leg began about 2 weeks ago. For the first day or two I had him (young male, maybe 6 months) penned up in a small hospital pen. But he absolutely hated being apart from his group (who free-range) and he fought the pen the whole time. He's never been penned up in his life, and I felt that he was going to hurt himself more thrashing about all the time since he didn't calm down even after 36 hours in the pen.

So I released him and for 2 weeks he's been limping about with the others. Sometimes he hangs back and sometimes he strolls about with them. He still flies to the top of the tree to roost. His foot doesn't seem to be the problem, it must be higher up on his leg, but when I checked it out, I wasn't able to diagnose the leg problem. Generally, he'll stand on one foot, or limp with the hurt foot. It's about the same now as it was at the beginning.

Do you know if these injuries ever get better? If not, I'm thinking I may have to get him butchered, or he may just end up losing weight and never truly recuperating enough to live a good life, especially having difficulty once breeding season starts if he has to fight other toms.

What do you do?