Celie
Let me see now you have some were around the count of thirty Double breasted Turkeys at an age that you are able to start harvesting them.
What is your plan when you have Turkeys starting to have Hart attacks and other health problems because of there weight.
I hope you have an outlet to sell them or family to give them to.
The one way I can see to extend the Turkeys life is to put them on a Jenny Craig Program
30 Turkeys at 30 pounds is 900 pounds of Turkey Good lord thats a lot of Turkey meat.
Frank,
You know that I raise Heritage Holland White turkeys.
Is your memory going already, at your age?
They do not have leg or heart trouble like you are talking about.
I am selective breeding, my best, largest breasted Heritage birds, I could find, in order to breed the biggest, best tasting turkeys
I can and still have a heritage bird that can mate naturally.
The 3 I harvested this year were from last year's breeders. They are not double breasted, only fat one and a half breasted toms, about a year and a half old. The one that we ate for Thanksgiving was the smallest and the only one that was small enough to fit into the new smoker.
He tasted great, but had a little more fat than I want on a turkey, so the 2, I will be harvesting for Christmas, are going into a pen and will be fed a high protein turkey grower feed along withoats and grass.( Jenny Creig better watch out)
I have 13 hens I am keeping for my breeding program and 14 Toms left. Probably 5 or 6 of the best toms will also be kept for breeding and the rest will go to freezer camp.
We do eat a lot of Turkey(turkey burgers, cutlets, home made sausage, and the dark meat, if cooked in some leftover Beef Roast grave taste just like Beef) as well as chicken, duck and rabbit.
I like eating what I raise, because I know what they are fed, I use no medication, chemicals, or GMO and they are treated humanly
, right up to harvest, so I do not support the cruelty that is prevalent in the poultry industry today! I an thinking of deboning a chicken, duck, turkey, and stuffing them inside of each other, with layers of different dressings and some rabbit loins in the center and roasting it for Christmas.
I did a lot of this fancy stuff for special dinners or catering for weddings and anniversaries(one of my hobbies is cooking) when I was younger, but it's been a while. Well, we'll see if the old gray mare can muster up the energy, cause I have a lot of ducks on the pond, like everybody, a few extra roos,
and a few rabbits
needing to be done in, very soon. If I keep 18 turkeys as breeding stock, in Feb. I can start filling turkey egg orders,
start filling my 2 incubators (holds 180 turkey eggs each) to hatch for the people who have ordered poults
and start next years replacements for breeders.
Some of my turkeys are too young to even think about breeding or harvesting, as they have hatched staggerdly throughout the spring and summer, whenever I hatched out more poults than I sold.
I only had 2 hens last year and 8 toms, so, even though both hens laid an egg a day for about 6 months, I wound up with about 3 dozen that were not sold. This coming year, I have 13 hens that should be breeding age in the spring,
so I will be culling any that do not make the grade.
If I can find big enough freezer bags to fit, I'll start taking orders for the Holidays, too. Would you like to place an order, in case those little BR's don't cut the mustard? LOL
........................................................................Only kidding, Frank, You have beautiful birds!
Even if they are TINY!!!!
