someone who knows about turkey breeding? bourbon reds

[mtnkids]

I have a bourbon red hen that I hatched last spring so she is almost a year old now. She was by herself and then she started squatting down on the ground here a couple weeks ago, then we found an egg on the ground from her.
So I found a bourbon red tom for her, and since the minute he went in the pen on Saturday he has been strutting and talking to her. I haven't seen her squatting at all though she has continued to lay another 4 eggs. I haven't seen any whoohoo at all, are the eggs worth saving and throwing in the incubator? Would I even know if they mated? Or maybe it was too late by the time she started laying eggs to put them together, I just don't know. Any information or advice would be appreciated, I'd sure like babies!

 

[ivan3]

Does she squat `present' when a human is nearby? Poults that imprint on humans think the humans are other turkeys (screwed-up sort of turkeys, but there it is). If she presents when you are nearby, just make sure the tom is handy. Once the tom starts mounting the hen just leave them to their own devices. If the mating is successful the hen will jump up and give out with something between a trill/high pitched putt.

Might take another week or so for the two of them to work out who's what (adjustment).

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

I had the same thing happen. I have an almost year old hen. She started squatting and getting excited everytime anyone walked by (including my roosters, who have tried their darnedest to please her ). Anyway, I got her a tom. She was interested in him for about 2.5 seconds, and now she could care less. He's been strutting and gobbling nonstop for a little over a week trying to get her attention. I haven't seen any eggs from her yet though. Fingers crossed for us both!!!

 

[SonnyGirl]

oh, I had a breeding question... was going to start my own post.. but, maybe someone could answer it here, since Ivan mentioned the hen making a trill noise.

Does it sound like the noise a poult makes?? My hen has 18 eggs but she hasn't really started setting yet.. spending more and more time on them though and lost a lot of weight. So when I saw them mating today, I almost broke it up when I heard that cause I thought he was hurting her! She's so frail looking now and he's at least twice her size so I was really concerned.

I ended up just walking over TOWARDS them but then it seemed to be over and I wasn't sure if I interrupted him or something but I felt really bad if I did. And then HE was making a funny noise from his um.. man parts. Is that normal?? It seemed too soon for anything to have actually "happened" so Im really worried that I might have stopped it and he might have slipped off cause of me
But Im also worried that he might be too big for her??

 

[SillyChicken]

sonny, it's normal for the tom to be bigger than the hens.. they brace themselves pretty good while the Tom gets himself ready on their backs.. the puckering noises from the male start before breeding, not sure why or what it means (not sure I want to know! LOL!). But I noticed that when my Tom made the noise, the hen lifted her tail and rear end up, so maybe it's a signal for the hen to get ready too.

 

[SonnyGirl]

phew... thank you for taking the time to respond!! It really upset me that I might have stopped them plus he seemed to slip off her back a little, so I decided I wasn't going to disturb them again and let nature takes its course. I've heard about large males hurting females, but now I'm assuming that's more for like a BB trying to get on a heritage hen or something?
And it's good to know the Tom's noise is normal... and... I SO agree with you about not wanting to know WHY he makes that noise!!!! LOL It was really disturbing, especially since I wasn't sure if *I* did something wrong that made him do that!! hahaha

 

[Lagerdogger]

You can tell if teh eggs have been fertilized. Crack one open carefully so that the yolk stays in tact. look around on the yolk and you will see a little white dot somewhere. If the dot is solid, then the egg is blank. If it looks like a little bull's eye, it is fertilized. If you do a search for "how to recognize a fertilized egg" here or on google, you should be able to find some pictures. I was skeptical at first, but once you know what you are looking for it is easy to recognize.

 

[SonnyGirl]

I did that before, but I didn't want to crack one open because by the time I'd finally done my research and learned about that, the eggs were a week old THEN.. I had her go on-and-off with setting.. she'd set full-time, stop for a week (where she'd only set at night) then last week she went back to it. It ended up becoming confusing for me cause she had 20 eggs ranging from about 35 days old to 10 days old. Someone advised I leave them alone, not even worry about them "exploding" and let her handle her business. Which, luckily, I did (mainly cause I was confused lol!!!). So, guess what I found tonight???? I'll give you a hint! There's two so far and I have no idea how many more to expect!! EEK