Ok. I'm on a hunt for turkeys. Anyone have any excess they are looking to sell?!? It's that time of year for me that I have to make the move. I have 1 tom and 1 poult (hen) that are of different breeds and I do not want to move forward with breeding them. I prefer blue slate. I have midget white and a Royal palm (I believe). So....Anyone? I'd like to add atleast a common pair and any Toms anyone has to offer. Yes, I would be making them dinner. So obviously if that's an issue please don't take offense, however that's my plan.
There's a guy selling lavender (self blue) Palms in Middleton. I'm not looking to sell, but I have an oddball assortment of types here. Only one who isn't going to make it past the holidays is the BBW jake "Princess" who's the typical BB sweetie, but they just don't live long enough, and I hate being so attached to him. The RK in Bloomington has heritage breed turkeys, so ask ahead before you make the drive as to which they're carrying. $14/ea, but get slightly older poults. If I bought day-olds there, they always got sick right after coming here (might have been all the rain), but the older Spanish Black I bought are super-healthy and really came around without much effort in socializing them. Go for the ones that run away if you put your hand in. So far, I'm batting 100 on gender using that method. From that RK, I have two Black Spanish, one chocolate, one lavender/self-blue slate, one bronze (all girls). Black Spanish and chocolate have never been sick--incredibly healthy and sociable, no matter what was going here. Both of the baby Bourbons and the Palm died, but if you pick out some older poults when the temps are more stable, you shouldn't have a problem. I have a Midget tom already (from racinchickens), and the Holland and Bourbon hens came from jchny2000 (Porter's originally). The Midget isn't sociable at all--despite extensive effort--but he's also not aggressive. He's topped out pretty small, which is what I was kinda looking for because I'm a "weirdie" (my daughter's term). I like little feed-efficient long-productive-lives turkeys (with a preference against pure white birds--come on, where's the color and variety!?), but I'm looking to select more for small size and tons of eggs (which is why I really wanted Palms to work out here). I don't have any big birds here (except Princess, of course)--> all of my big birds have self-destructed, and this is my first year with heritage breeds. So, an unrelated but related question: How long does it take toms to figure out how to mate "properly"? Poor Major Tom's super happy to have ladies around, but all he seems to be doing is standing on them awkwardly. He's yet to properly "get down with his bad self". Anyone think he'll figure it out by spring?
