They hatched naturally! Now what?!

[chickensam]

We were able to get 4 poults from our one year old Narragansett and Royal Palm. She left the nest once she had 3. We took the eggs and hatched one more ourselves! There was only one that was a late developer and didn't make it. The rest of the eggs never developed.

Now we have 4 cuties, we think 2 hens and 2 jakes. One hatched with us. One is recovering nicely after raccoon attack. At first the Dad was agro to chicks, but now they all live like a cute little family. I can't believe this one poult survived that attack!

Unfortunately we can't keep them all. And these new 6 week old ones are definitely more feisty and wild than the first 2 from the grange.

Many questions about this little family living on .25 acres in town....

QUESTIONS:
-Can I clip their wings so young?? They are flying all over.
-If we keep the two adults and 2 poults will they then mate and is that ok with turkeys? I've read it is with chickens.
-Will the toms fight a lot and do we have to keep them separate?
-In general what is best coop set up for them all now??? We have our chickens separate now because the tom was roughing them up. Then we separated the hen and eggs.
-Is it best to keep just one tom?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

@R2elk can answer with more certainty but I can do some of the questions.

The tom will mate with his daughters when they're close to laying age. It's fine if he does, since they only share about half their DNA with him.
With that number of hens you're planning to keep, just stick with one male.
The males will squabble at the very least as they age up to see which of the three (dad included) deserves to lead the group.

 

[chickensam]

@R2elk can answer with more certainty but I can do some of the questions.

The tom will mate with his daughters when they're close to laying age. It's fine if he does, since they only share about half their DNA with him.
With that number of hens you're planning to keep, just stick with one male.
The males will squabble at the very least as they age up to see which of the three (dad included) deserves to lead the group.

Thank you! What is a good ratio of male to female?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Thank you! What is a good ratio of male to female?

When I had a flock, my male did okay with just 3 hens, but I'm not exactly sure what the recommended number is. I only had my flock for a year or 2 before it was wiped out

 

[R2elk]

We were able to get 4 poults from our one year old Narragansett and Royal Palm. She left the nest once she had 3. We took the eggs and hatched one more ourselves! There was only one that was a late developer and didn't make it. The rest of the eggs never developed.

Now we have 4 cuties, we think 2 hens and 2 jakes. One hatched with us. One is recovering nicely after raccoon attack. At first the Dad was agro to chicks, but now they all live like a cute little family. I can't believe this one poult survived that attack!

Unfortunately we can't keep them all. And these new 6 week old ones are definitely more feisty and wild than the first 2 from the grange.

Many questions about this little family living on .25 acres in town....

QUESTIONS:
-Can I clip their wings so young?? They are flying all over.
-If we keep the two adults and 2 poults will they then mate and is that ok with turkeys? I've read it is with chickens.
-Will the toms fight a lot and do we have to keep them separate?
-In general what is best coop set up for them all now??? We have our chickens separate now because the tom was roughing them up. Then we separated the hen and eggs.
-Is it best to keep just one tom?

Definitely only keep one tom. You do not have the room for more than one tom.

Mating father to daughter or son to mother is line breeding and is a commonly used method. Mating brother to sister is inbreeding and is discouraged since it is the fastest method to bring out undesirable hidden genes.

Clipping wings on very young poults doesn't do much good because they can still jump a lot higher than you would think. Adults with clipped wings have no problems jumping up.6'.

 

[chickensam]

Definitely only keep one tom. You do not have the room for more than one tom.

Mating father to daughter or son to mother is line breeding and is a commonly used method. Mating brother to sister is inbreeding and is discouraged since it is the fastest method to bring out undesirable hidden genes.

Clipping wings on very young poults doesn't do much good because they can still jump a lot higher than you would think. Adults with clipped wings have no problems jumping up.6'.

Thank you, helpful. So if I keep the one tom this stops the inbreeding. Am I understanding? Otherwise how do people stop them from breeding?

 

[Molpet]

Thank you, helpful. So if I keep the one tom this stops the inbreeding. Am I understanding? Otherwise how do people stop them from breeding?

Have to separate to keep them from breeding, you don't have enough room for that.

 

[R2elk]

Thank you, helpful. So if I keep the one tom this stops the inbreeding. Am I understanding? Otherwise how do people stop them from breeding?

If you keep the father as the only male, you will have line breeding with the offspring but no inbreeding.

People that raise lots of turkeys tend to have breeding pens to make sure that the turkeys they want to breed together are separated from the turkeys they don't want to breed together.