Minnesota!

[duluthralphie]

Ralphie, if you wan the truth about our turkeys, I fear you will have to leave BYC to do so. Interweb experts are a dime a dozen, but on here they can be a penney for 20. I think 'rusty slate' is something someone pulled out of there butt.

I assume your right. I really, as I said earlier, do not care. I like my turkeys, the people that meet them like them. They are unique and their babies are unique. They are pets. I got them as pets, they were my first birds, then they needed 4 chicks to care for....then I got another 150, and more turkeys, and geese and guineas and finally I am haunted by a zombie ghost chickadee..

So they will be staying until I can not longer care for them or they pass on.. And I bet they will never change color the entire time. Anyone can guess at their parentage and they could be right, their is no way to disprove them. A Turkey is a turkey, and it is the color it is and will have the babies it has.


I think I will call them "rusty red river sand turkeys" and market their eggs on Ebay for $3,000 a piece, which will make the people buying diamond encrusted creamette eggs at $1,500 know they are getting a bargain..


BTW I got a post from a guy wanting to know what creamettes were, said he googled it and all he got was hits on macaroni....

 

[duluthralphie]

Bogtown Use a game camera...not that they work well in a coop.




Oh and after a 13 day break, I finally got a diamond encrusted egg, BUT they laid it on the floor and not in the nests....

 

[holm25]

BTW I got a post from a guy wanting to know what creamettes were, said he googled it and all he got was hits on macaroni....

I saw this post and was laughing so hard!!!

from now on when there r new people on the thread u will have to give them a list of the nick names u have for ur breeds.

 

[holm25]

Bogtown Use a game camera...not that they work well in a coop.




Oh and after a 13 day break, I finally got a diamond encrusted egg, BUT they laid it on the floor and not in the nests....

Yay! My duck went on a 1-2 month vacation. Then I watched a bunch of videos from the utuber 50 ducks in a hot tub. And I said to myself I wonder when our duck will start laying. Went to the coop and there was an egg! Finally!!

 

[Rhetts]

@holm25 Congrats on getting your duck egg!! I felt like I waited forever for the ducks to start laying. Everyone was super excited for our first duck egg. The waiting is hard but the reward of eggs every day was worth it. What breeds of ducks do you have? They are so funny to watch.

 

[holm25]

@holm25
 Congrats on getting your duck egg!! I felt like I waited forever for the ducks to start laying.  Everyone was super excited for our first duck egg.  The waiting is hard but the reward of eggs every day was worth it.  What breeds of ducks do you have?  They are so funny to watch.

A pair of white Pekins the hen started laying at a little after 5 months and layed until February and quit and now just started again

 

[lalaland]

I thought this was really helpful, including pics of chickens with the avian flu:

http://onpasture.com/2015/05/04/avian-flu-coming-to-a-hen-house-near-you/

 

[jbenson]

DH convinced me to put the end of February (and older) babies in the big coop at bedtime tonight. Still not sure if it's a great idea, but they are in there - 6 dark cornish (2 pullets and 4 cockerels), 1 barred cochin cockerel and 3 mille d'Uccle pullets. I am a bit worried about the d'Uccle pullets since they are the smallest, but I'm thinking if they can hold their own with those bulldogs they call cornish, they'll be fine. I switched them to grower pellets just last week, but they seemed to be able to eat them just fine (seem to need to leave my bantams on starter longer than I feel like I need to just because of size of the pellets) so they'll be able to eat with the big girls. The only thing was, we plopped them in the run and when dark came, I had to crawl in there and put them inside by hand (well not the cornish cockerels, but everyone else). The rest of the flock was roosted up for the night, but the babies had no idea what to do. That's gonna get old quick if they can't figure it out in a couple days. Moved the middle of March babies into the mini chicken tractor (which is inside the brooder house) and DH started working on converting the other bunny hutch into a second tractor. And spread out the end of March babies to give them room to stretch wings and legs. Got a few more shuffles to be made before everyone is comfy and when they outgrow this, we'll do it all over again in a few weeks. Though the next batch has probably a month before they are big enough to join the main flock, maybe longer. I may keep some of the smallest breeds in the brooder house for a bit of extra time just to be sure they are plenty big enough to fend for themselves. And I need to put up some lower extra roost bars in the main coop so the babies don't end up sleeping on the floor (or in the nest boxes). Can't believe they were big enough to put in with the big girls today, but those cornish are at least as big as my adult d'Uccle hens - no joike. Tomorrow the flock feasts on a giant pile of spent grain from a local brew pub. They were brewing today when DH stopped by and they let him take the soaked grains. The chickens LOVE soggy sweet barley and oats. Whatever they don't eat in the next 2 days gets raked up and composted.

 

[duluthralphie]

JB You sound like you were way too busy! I hope the newbies enjoy the "new" home.
I wish I had a source for brewers left overs. Grats on the score.

Holms Grats on the egg, (I guess), of course I thought you would be smarter than to want more ducks, (based on my last year goose experience all waterfowl are persona non-gratus here)

After last evenings guinea truck accident, I went out at a quarter to one and captured the remaining 7 guineas and will be moving them to the gulag in the morning.
It was our anniversary yesterday, we had a big night, we fell asleep watching TV, never did get to town for the celebratory dairy queen. Oh Well. I woke at half past midnight, I did not want to go out and capture the guineas but knew I had too. They were not happy about the capturing.

I had a hen in a nest box, I moved her out and scolded her on occupying a nest box during sleeping hours. She was extremely grouchy and told me off. I put her on a roost and she scolded me more. I cannot repeat the names she called me in the chicken language. They would make bogtown blush even.

I decided to count hens I was one short. I took the guineas to the other coop for the rest of the night, they can go into the gulag in the morning. I found the last hen, she was sitting on the edge of the pen keeping Bert company. I put Bert in with the Dixie chicks during the day, but because of his limited mobility I put him in his own pen with food and water in the evening. The hen (Turken) was keeping him company.

well, back to bed.

 

[ejb3810]

Ralphie, I think you are a little confused about your turkeys. Anything that exotic can not be just pets or lawn ornaments. Anyone with a little knowledge knows they are not the Lilac variety. Without much doubt they are the last surviving pair (as far as I know) of the rare variety " Togo Turquoise". And there you have it.