Mixing breeds

[hrtgtrkys&chicks]

I have been raising Black Spanish for almost 2 years. I kept a tom and 3 hens for breeding. I added 5 hens to the pen that I hatched last April, that came from my tom and the hens. I was going to have 7 hens and a tom for next years breeding. I processed 12 turkeys on Sat the 14th. Soon after I noticed my 20 month old tom looked ill and was having bright yellow stools. He became lethargic and didn't eat. He died Monday afternoon. I am having a necropsy preformed to see if it is contagious or just him. 3 months ago I had a 17 month old hen die under similar circumstances and the necropsy came back liver disease of undertermined origin. If it's not contagious I am going to get a Royal Palm tom from a friend. Since these are purely for meat and not for show, does anyone see a problem with this???

 

[longranger]

No real problem but if you are growing the turkeys for meat the royal palm probably is the least meaty of all heritage turkeys. No problems with taste, appearance or temperament and the crosses could be wonderful.

 

[hrtgtrkys&chicks]

My Blacks processed at 15 lbs for the toms and 8-10 lbs for the hens after 30 weeks. From everything I've read the Royal Palms are about the same size.

 

[longranger]

That is relatively small for black spanish but all the varieties exhibit major variations in traits from one line to another. As long as you are happy with the health, appearance, size, temperament and taste of your birds you are a lucky turkey owner. I only mentioned size because adding a variety such as bronze, Narri etc you might get bigger birds with slightly better feed conversion ratio. With MW or BR you might get a poults with the supposedly superior flavor of these varieties.

I own one RP right now. He is magnificent so I have absolutely nothing against this variety. Am getting chololate RP poults from Kevin Porter late this spring.

 

[hrtgtrkys&chicks]

Last year I raised them totally organic from start to finish. But I found the starter feed wasn't high enough in protein. It's 22% vs game bird starter feed at 30%. So this year I got game bird starter feed. They were at least 5 inches taller after the 8 weeks in the brooder. There's no organic finisher feed, so at 6 weeks before processing I increased the protein with organic fish meal and increased the fat with organic rice bran. There was noticeably more fat when I prcessed them and I had 2, 10 lb hens when I had none last years. I might start the fish meal and rice bran a little earlier next year. I will probably also get the organic starter and add the fish meal to increase the protein to the game bird starter 30%. 2 pounds of fish meal to 50 of feed raises it 5%.