Knock down Drag outs! Is this severity of fights normal???

[satay]

Yes I think he is a he. The look and build of him says he. By that age he should be alot bigger framed than they girl. I will go take a look at my toms as i can't actually rememeber how long their nose bits are. I have one age unknown and one just over 12 months.

 

[satay]

Sorry no go at the lenght of their nose bits. It's early spring here and the boys are far to busy showing off for their girls to let mum know the size of their nose bits even when I asked nicely

 

[Ravenworks71]

I love it! Nose Bits! I'm gonna be calling them that now, it sounds much better than snooooood!

I hope you have a warmer spring and summer than we did. Heading into fall now, yeay 8 months of rain snow and gray. Ah, the great Pacific Northwest.

 

[longranger]

Steve's question about the size of my pen is a wise one. The pen was a little crowded. Would not have said that a week or 2 ago but they are just growing so fast. That has been fixed by having several birds that were scheduled for pickup some time ago finally picked up and the sad loss of the one broody hen.

Will pre-emptively open another pen and transfer a future breeder group there to make sure they all have more than enough room. This incident still weirds me out because it involved a calm submissive hen and an unusually persistent attack that looked like it was mainly one tom.

The aggresive tom thankfully was an extra and is not a variety I planned to keep. Named him several weeks ago after a co-worker I promised him to. Already informed him that he will be having a felon for dinner.

 

[Ravenworks71]

(Longranger) Already informed him that he will be having a felon for dinner. Love it!



Things have stayed calm around here for a few days now. Today I will be adding the Slate hen. I am worried about more fighting. My pen and property are big enough...(I hope). Just how much space does a Turkey need? The area I have for the them is about 9,700 SQ feet, plus, they come up to the house all the time and rummage/ransack/loot my deck and greenhouse area. They seem to enjoy sitting in front of my slider window and make use of my African Grey parrots "outside" perch, and when they were smaller they chose a very ironic perch. I am still not sure how he got up there.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

You have plenty of room for them at 9700 square feet. Love all the plants on your porch by the way!

Steve

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
We are growing out Midgets and Beltsvilles this year Ranger so I feel your pain. Everywhere you look there is a white turkey, they have a great time fence jumping so I have taken to keeping a pair of scissors in my pocket, now there are piles of wing feathers here and there around the fences, the dogs run around chewing on turkey wing feathers, the feed mill guy is happy we are growing out so many.

Everybody is happy

Steve

 

[Ravenworks71]

Quote:
Thanks! I'm kinda obsessed with green-ery.

Taken with a fish eye camera

 

[thaiturkey]

Quote:
Relax, you're doing fine. There might be more 'adjustment' when you add to the flock but I think you've seen the worst it can get. Our three boys can seem determined to kill one another and then drift around like old men on a country walk who've spent a lifetime as best pals. The old man himself, even though he had to concede top dog position, usually rises above it and keeps to himself now. He limits himself to his old lookout job and looks on with disdain when the others go for war.

 

[Ravenworks71]

(thaiturkey)Relax, you're doing fine. There might be more 'adjustment' when you add to the flock but I think you've seen the worst it can get. Our three boys can seem determined to kill one another and then drift around like old men on a country walk who've spent a lifetime as best pals. The old man himself, even though he had to concede top dog position, usually rises above it and keeps to himself now. He limits himself to his old lookout job and looks on with disdain when the others go for war.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a smooth transaction.