Midget White Breeders?

[ninjapoodles]

We're going to get some Midget Whites for next year, and I was just wondering who the MW breeders here are before I go outside BYC to find them.

Or, if you just have a good recommendation, I'd love to hear it.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I believe sandspoultry has them.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

Sandhill mid. Whites are great. My Old tom (1year+) is a great breeder.

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
Yes we just happen to be "sitting on" a few

. We have just a few hens laying now and are doing small auctions on ebay from time to time. We will be able to offer larger numbers of eggs hopefully from Jan on depending on the weather.

Steve in NC

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
Yes we just happen to be "sitting on" a few

. We have just a few hens laying now and are doing small auctions on ebay from time to time. We will be able to offer larger numbers of eggs hopefully from Jan on depending on the weather.

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg37/sandspoultry/turkeys/Spice.jpg

Steve in NC

Awesome! We're going to be wanting at least a couple dozen birds...how difficult are the eggs to incubate? Especially for a beginner?

 

[sandspoultry]

They aren't that hard to incubate at all I think, we have a GQF Sportsman and use the same settings as for chicken eggs. 99.8 to 100F, 50% RH until we stop turning then about 65%.

Turkey eggs take 25 days to stop turning, 28-ish to hatch. The recommend temp for turkeys is 99.5 and since we run ours just a touch warmer ours start to pip at late day 26 and hatch 27 or early 28. Anyway, if you have a good setting and good hatch rate for chicken eggs turkeys should do fine.

They are a little touchy when they are first hatched. You need to make sure all the poults are eating and drinking, never never never overcrowd them (that's the biggest secret to raising turkeys....shhhh don't tell anyone

) If they are over crowded the smaller ones get pushed aside and will "starve out". We try to time our turkey hatches with chicks hatching about 3 to 5 days before. The chicks are eating and drinking well by that time and they will show the poults. (another big secret there) Vitamins in the water from day one and poof you are knee deep in turkeys before you know it.

Steve in NC

 

[ninjapoodles]

Thanks for the advice, Steve! We've bought day-old poults, but have never hatched turkeys from eggs before. We just got a new Hovabator Genesis, and I think a good thing for us to do would be to do a couple of practice runs on our own chicken eggs before ordering turkey eggs.

Do you think you'll have some to send in January? Should we maybe do a dozen at a time instead of a couple dozen, since we're beginners?

Thanks for all your help!

Belinda

 

[sandspoultry]

We should have eggs by then depending on the weather, what about your end though? will it be warm enough to ship eggs to you?

Steve

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
It should be a little warmer here than it is where you are, so if it's OK on your end it should be OK on ours? I guess we'll play it by ear! We love our Narris, but after seeing how some MWs dressed out, we REALLY want a flock of them.

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
It should be a little warmer here than it is where you are, so if it's OK on your end it should be OK on ours? I guess we'll play it by ear! We love our Narris, but after seeing how some MWs dressed out, we REALLY want a flock of them.

Ok we can just keep an eye on the weather and go from there. Jan is still pretty open for us shipping wise.

Steve