some in lightment please on my turkeys acts.

Soaring Chicks

Soaring Hawks Farm
10 Years
Jan 3, 2010
2,564
32
173
Henderson,NC
hello,
I have Wishard Bronze Turkeys that are a year old this month (end of it)
The Toms have gotten along up in till yesterday. I was in Va and did not get home till later that night.
I did the rounds and found they had been fighting. So I took one outand put him in his own run. The end right!? No
most of the fighting is my biggest for sure Hen. I found this out when I was letting the dogs out an heard fighting sounds.
So off I go to see who was fighting and the hen was kicking the biggest domaint toms butt. Then he would back down and she would jump him again. When he really started fighting back she backs off and turns away kind flatens her body ( not swatting for him) and keeps walking for a few feet stops and stands that way . He will come up displaying 100% then walks away.
My first thought is the girls are getting ready to start laying /breeding. No breeding happen all day fighting off and on with tom.
Then all at once she goes after the other 2 girls displaying like a tom and has plucked the feather off in spots on the other girls necks.
Is this normal or do I have really _ictch of a hen? I thought about having Turkey for dinner tonight it got that bad. I could go in there and they stop and come looking for treats. I did get them to stop by putting scratch grains and treats for them to find. made sure they had food water and the whole 9 yards . Short of sitting with they all day in the cage nothing ketp her for picking fights with anyone of the flock.
Anyone with any info would be Great!!!!
fl.gif
 
How many hens/toms do you have? It sounds like that hen is ready to breed.
Turkeys do start to get rowdy around this point. Culling her will just mean the next one down the pecking order will start.
Turkeys fight MEAN. Wait until one of your males or your boss hen snatches the snood right off of another male. The key is to either separate out the males/females until you get a good ratio (like chickens, one or two toms for every eight hens). They will still fight, but not as bad if they are separated. This is a huge hassle and not worth the trouble unless you are going to develop a really specific breeding program and you have the room. If all these guys are going in the freezer then just make sure they have plenty of space and plenty of feeders/waterers so they have less to fight over.

Oh and if you separate, be aware that re-mixing later will mean crazy serious fights!!!
 
I have two toms but i was waiting to the breeder. The top tom has 3 hens. I took the other one out and will be sellig him .
I really like the hen and would not butcher her I wa just stating that she had mad me that mad that it crosses my mine (in anger)
I do free range but with all that started my first thought was getting close to breeding time. So I penned them up.
She was not as worked up today so things seem to be calming down. We have wild turkeys here all the time but Ive never saw a turkey hen actully beat the tar out of a tom before.
So the brake down is she was testing which tom was the top and after I took the weaker one out she was again testing the tom and stating she is top hen and rules the roost?
I just wanted to make sure it was that and nothing else.
Thanks for your reply.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom