Poults of 2023

[casportpony]

With so many people posting pictures of their poults, I thought I should get in on the action too. On 5/30, I looked on Craigslist and found someone near me selling five three-day-old blue slate poults, so I bought them. It's been a few years since I've had poults, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy raising them.

Please join me and share your poult pictures and progress reports!

Here's mine:
Since there are only five of them, I decided to put different colored zip-ties on their legs and weigh them daily. Note that the weights shown are in grams.

#	Color	Sex	5/30/2023	5/31/2023	6/1/2023	6/2/2023
1	blue	TBD	41	48	53	64
2	pink	TBD	39	44	52	61
3	yellow	TBD	41	51	58	69
4	orange	TBD	45	54	56	67
5	green	TBD	45	50	54	63

 

[casportpony]

Here are Blue, Green, and Yellow or Orange on 10/29/2023

 

[casportpony]

 

[casportpony]

True slates do not have any brown on them. It can be caused by the red color gene in the case of a rusty or by the genes involved in Tri-color Mottleds. I am guessing the person you got the poults from also has Bourbon Reds which would account for the red color gene.

Thanks. It's okay if they're not pure, I would have purchased anything except for broad-breasted.

 

[casportpony]

Sadly, little Pink is no longer with us. I tried everything, but could not save her/him. When weighing Green today, it passed a foamy cecal poop, which is not noral, so I will treat is for coccidiosis with Baycox (toltrazuril).

 

[R2elk]

My Narragansett and Bourbon Red at a few days, four weeks, and fifteen weeks (present). By the way, can anyone confirm if they’re females? They don’t gobble or strut or fan their tails.

The 2 in this picture are hens.

 

[casportpony]

Orange & Yellow gobbled yesterday!

 

[R2elk]

Update - Four months old
View attachment 3645060

View attachment 3645055

Turkey	Weight	Sex
Blue	4 kg (~8.8 pounds)	Female
Yellow	5 kg (~11 pounds)	Male
Orange	5.7 kg (~12.6 pounds)	Male
Green	4 kg (~8.8 pounds)	Female

Which tom are you going to eat?

 

[R2elk]

I ordered a turkey saddle on ebay so I can replicate it and make my own pattern from it. I only keep one tom in each area with hens but one of them got ripped up a little the other day. She is fine, but I'm going to make up some turkey saddles for some that lose feathers on their backs just in case.

Talk to @OneMountainAcres about making turkey saddles. She makes and sells them.

The other thing that gets hens injured is allowing toms to have access to the nest. They will take the hen sitting on a nest as an invitation to breed. The unwanted attempts often lead to broken eggs and injured or killed hens if the wound is severe enough.

 

[R2elk]

The brown spot or something else?

True slates do not have any brown on them. It can be caused by the red color gene in the case of a rusty or by the genes involved in Tri-color Mottleds. I am guessing the person you got the poults from also has Bourbon Reds which would account for the red color gene.