Turkenstein25's Turkey Talk for 2015

[Book Em Danno25]

things are great!!!

 

[Skink]

I am planning to get my first turkeys this year! I want a small group of midget whites. Originally wanted royal palms, but the fences we have wouldn't keep them out of the neighbor's yards, so I couldn't let them out. Decided to see if there were any critical breeds on livestock conservancy I was interested in and picked these. They will be kept as pets, but I wouldn't mind hatching their eggs to sell poults or selling hatching eggs, so I'm hoping to find good stock to start with. If anyone knows where I can turn to get hatching eggs from good birds, do let me know!

Heritage turkeys seem hard to get in my area, maybe because of the intense summers. Luckily our yard is very heavily shaded and the tree branches are dense. Songbirds have trouble getting around up there, I doubt the turkeys could roost in the tree. If my cochin is broody at the time, she'll hatch the eggs for me, but they will more than likely go in to a brinsea mini advanced incubator if they'll fit. Once old enough, I probably won't let my hens brood. Eggs and turkey crap will be all I get from them, after all! I won't want to hatch more poults unless I have a place for them to go anyway. Hoping to try them in a hoop coop sort of set-up across the yard from the chooks, as we're on rented property and only plan to remain 2 or 3 years before buying land nearby to move everything on too.. don't want to build something heavy and permanent that I grow to love then have to leave, or worse, pay to have removed.

Looking forward to thumbing through this thread for feed brand and waterer suggestions!

 

[Book Em Danno25]

congrats!!! hope it goes well!

 

[K Epp]

I'm down to 1 Bourbon Red tom. My neighbor has a hen he said he would give me I just have to catch him at home. I had a Slate hen and liked the cross. I'll hatch a bunch.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

I just butchered this year's 6 Bourbon Red turkeys, 2 hens and 4 toms. I really wish I could have kept a tom and two hens to see if I could start a small breeding program, but all the turkeys were spoken for (friends and family) plus I wasn't sure the enclosure I had for them would be adequate shelter for the winter months.

My biggest issue with the BRs was that it really took two people to dispatch the toms and even then, it was a bit of a wrestling match. Does any one know how long the midget whites take to mature? It might be nice to raise something that wasn't such a struggle on butchering day.

 

[Chad Cool]

Hi all, I guess I'll start out by saying i'm on my second year of BR's. I have 2 Toms and 2 Hens. Both hens are laying but right now they have stopped for the year. One of my hens went broody and hatched her own eggs, I want to say 12 hatched and one died the 1st day, then one died everyday after till I took them from her. Now I have 7 of those remaining. It broke my heart to see her wanting her poults but they kept dying and I new I could save them. Now they are growing and healthy. I also hatched out 4 other eggs from her that are doing great as well. I'm going to post some question I hope y'all can help out with.

1. What is the best thing to feed turkys?

2. I'm thinking of Hoop Houses for breeding pins would this work and how big would you make it and how many turkys?

3. How many hens can one Tom Breed Productivly?

4. In Georgia we can't process poultry to sale. What else can I do with them? I'm not into shows.

Thank you for your time.
God Bless

 

[TeaChick]

Hi all, I guess I'll start out by saying i'm on my second year of BR's. I have 2 Toms and 2 Hens. Both hens are laying but right now they have stopped for the year. One of my hens went broody and hatched her own eggs, I want to say 12 hatched and one died the 1st day, then one died everyday after till I took them from her. Now I have 7 of those remaining. It broke my heart to see her wanting her poults but they kept dying and I new I could save them. Now they are growing and healthy. I also hatched out 4 other eggs from her that are doing great as well. I'm going to post some question I hope y'all can help out with.

1. What is the best thing to feed turkys?

2. I'm thinking of Hoop Houses for breeding pins would this work and how big would you make it and how many turkys?

3. How many hens can one Tom Breed Productivly?

4. In Georgia we can't process poultry to sale. What else can I do with them? I'm not into shows.

Thank you for your time.
God Bless

That's good you were able to save some of the poults. It is hard to take babies away from their mother.
I don't know much about turkeys; I'm on this thread to learn, but I am good at coming up with ideas. lol So, to answer your fourth question....
- If you live close to the state line, you might be able to find customers on CL that are in the next state.
- You could sell them as poults to ppl who want to raise their own turkeys.
- Some ppl might by them as young jakes and jennies to process themselves. (If someone bought a turkey from you, and then asked you, as a favor, to process it, would that get around the legality of not processing them to sell? You might check with a lawyer on that; IDK.)

I hope all goes well with your turkeys! =)

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

We have 7 Bourbon Reds shortly to be 6. Gobble gobble. We plan on hatching as many eggs as our 3 hens will give us and selling processed turkeys for Thanksgiving in 2015.

 

[TeaChick]

So, to play by the rules

I thought I would copy and paste the questions from the first post and answer them (as many of them as I can at this point, anyway).
-How many turkeys do you have? 0 =( But I hope to have about 3-5, give or take; I'm waiting to find out how many hens a tom can cover. =)
-How many poults do you plan on hatching? lots!!! I hope to allow hens to brood. (Has anyone ever had a turkey hen hatch chicken eggs? Just curious.)
-What breeds do you want/have? I want Narragansett turkeys. My criteria are heritage breed, forages well, friendly or at least non-aggressive.
-where are you getting your eggs from? IDK.
-will you be raising your turkeys for meat? We will eat the extra males. We will make sure that we have one turkey to raise for Thanksgiving dinner 2015.
-will you be raising them for pets, etc? No, they're livestock, but we get a little more attached to our animals than that. (I say, as my youngest talks to our most recent chick and pretends that she's telling him that she had a great day. lol)
-what type of housing are you going to use for your birds? Homemade coops. =D
-what will you feed them? I'm not sure what poults should be fed (medicated v. unmedicated; gamebird crumbles v. chick starter/grower). Once they're old enough, I plan on free ranging them (I guess that's about 2 mos old, right?) and I'll offer fermented scratch grains as I do for the chickens.
-will you be using an incubator to hatch your eggs? If I get hatching eggs to start my flock, then I will use an incubator, unless I get eggs in the spring and I can get a chicken hen to brood them. Eggs I get from my hens, I would rather let them brood, but I will use an incubator if I need to.
-do you want your hens to be broody so they can hatch eggs? Yes!!!

-what kinds of waterers, feeders,etc will you be using? At first, I will use chick waterers and feeders. When they start free ranging, they will use the Smart Balance tubs and dog food dishes like all the other birds.

Please let me know if you see anything I'm mistaken about.

 

[Book Em Danno25]

nice!! how about anyone else?