Turkey Talk for 2014

[Sydney Acres]

I picked up my Gould's Tom last night and have been fascinated by his displays and drumming this morning!! What a beautiful bird....I have him with a Gould's hen and a mixed hen (Narragansett and Royal parents). I am wondering what his and the mix offspring will look like or if I should separate them..

Whether or not you should separate them depends on whether their behaviors are compatible enough to live together (Gould's being a wild species held in captivity, their behavior is sometimes unpredictable), whether you want purebred or mixed offspring, and if you want purebred poults, can you tell the difference between the eggs of the two hens well enough to decide which ones to incubate.

If you do decide to incubate mixed breed eggs, predicting their appearance will take a bit more work because your domestic hen is already a mixed breed. So instead of creating an F1 generation (which is a mix of two purebred parents that gives you an easily predictable result of either 1,2, or 4 appearances in most cases, depending on the breeds involved), you would be using an F1 parent (or depending on the genetic line of her parents, she may be an F2 or even later generation away from purebred). The F1 or later generations often have recessive color genes that don't show on the outside, but come out in the offspring, sometimes immediately or sometimes many generations later. So if you know for sure that the hen is a mix of a purebred Naragansett and a purebred Royal palm, then you can theoretically predict the outcome of the F2 generation that she would produce. It would probably have either 4, 6, 8, or 16 different possibilities, depending on what recessive genes she carries. Since the narri color gene is on the XY chromosome, a portion of the poults might be sex-linked in appearance, but that may or may not be useful, depending on the color combinations that are produced. If, on the other hand, she is already an F2 or later generation, things get even more complicated.

In your predictions, I would assume that you would consider the tom to have the color genetics of a Bronze, although there are some differences, and that may or may not have a significant effect on the F1-F2 generation. Perhaps there is someone on this site that has experience with wild/domestic turkey crosses that can tell you if the color genetics are predictable using the Bronze characteristics, or if other things need to be considered.

There is a basic color genetics "map" on the Porter's Turkey website. Here is a link to the page: http://www.porterturkeys.com/feathercolorgenetics.htm

 

[Sydney Acres]

Just an update on my roosters crooked toes:
After being on the grower/finisher feed since late summer my Welsummer's and one other roosters toes have straightened back out. I sold the third rooster. I am now convinced it was something in the layer feed the crippled my roosters, it may not have been the calcium but it was definitely something in the feed! And all my hens are still laying perfectly fine.

Have you contacted your feed manufacturer? They may have some explanation.

 

[JWEBB]

thats a good idea I wondered about this also.

 

[mrwoodboat]

thanks- I have no idea about the Nar hen's parents but the Royal Palms parents were on site when I picked the mixed hen up (she and her siblings were an accidental breeding or so I was told)

The Goulds hen is starting to lay down for the tom already so I guess I need to get her a hidey hole set up....

 

[piglett]

I picked up my Gould's Tom last night and have been fascinated by his displays and drumming this morning!! What a beautiful bird....I have him with a Gould's hen and a mixed hen (Narragansett and Royal parents). I am wondering what his and the mix offspring will look like or if I should separate them..

i wouldn't someone will be glad to buy any little ones you can hatch out from the mixed girl for either pets or for "camp"

also the lone pure hen will be glad that there is another in the pen so she isn't always the one being "jumped" by the tom

 

[Sydney Acres]

They were totally worth the trip! I told the guy when I got down there that. I also told him that the reason he got so many replies was the price. I told him up our way that usually people ask at least $50 per hen - some that want $50 their toms want $75 per hen. Yes, $25 each was a steal!

I wanted to ask... Do toms 'growl'? I can't tell if this tom was growling, has an issue I should be aware of or if it's because of the way I was carrying him. I think it was the way I was carrying him. It;s the only time I've ever heard him make that noise. Oh, and he's a heavy SOB. Dewey had to carry him. When I was carrying him, I was thinking about how big his breasts were and how yummy he looks when he puffs up. He better hope he doens't get mean. I will greatly enjoy the meal he'll make.

Hopefully you've been able to get some sleep after your long day. We want to see a picture of Snowflake's head. They're all beautiful.

I haven't heard my toms do something that I would classify as a true growl, but I have no doubt they can. Several of my roosters growl when they see eagles, and parrots (especially African Greys) are famous for their growls. But I have heard lots of strange noises when I pick up my toms. I think what happens is when we lift them we compress their lungs and especially their air sacs, which are almost always somewhat distended even when they're not overtly displaying. When the air gets pushed out of them quickly, and without their control, the sounds that result from the air rushing out over their vocal cords can be strange. And if it's a bit uncomfortable for them to be lifted and they're trying to groan but it comes out wrong, it could easily sound like a growl. Now that my boys are so large I don't lift them very often, not because they weigh so much, but because one time the air sac decompression was so, well, explosive, and he reacted so strongly that I thought I had ruptured his air sac. He was ok, just really startled, but I'm more careful now. But there's times when you just have to pick them up.

 

[chicken pickin]

My turkeys are officially mating

I saw it with my own two eyes

lol

This is their second season and the toms seem like naturals, pros. Last year they were like clumsy teenagers lol.

I should be seeing fertile eggs soon.

 

[uphilljill]

Spring must be coming soon...Love is in the air!

 

[chickadoodles]

Have you contacted your feed manufacturer? They may have some explanation.

No I have not, but I did ask the TSC store that I have been buying it from. No surprise they did not know anything. I guess I should.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Quote:
For domestic turkeys, the tom waits for the hen to squat down for him, so it is uncommon for domestic turkey hens to be overbred unless there is a serious management error, or the tom has inappropriate behavior. Roosters, on the other hand, are sometimes very aggressive while breeding and many will chase down an unwilling hen. I would suspect that Gould's turkeys behave more like domestic turkeys than chickens, but that may not be true, especially since wild animals kept in captivity often display abnormal behaviors. It's possible that the domestic hen won't be tolerated by the Gould's pair, or it's possible that all three of them will become closely bonded. But because they are different species with different management needs and possibly different social behaviors, it is important to keep all options open, and be prepared to meet the needs of all animals that we keep under our care, whatever they may be.

There's no doubt that any mixed poults could be sold, assuming they were adequately advertised, reasonably priced, and shipping was available or the owner wasn't out in the middle of nowhere. But every person needs to decide specifically why they want to breed birds, because without a good reason we'd all just become either hoarders or the avian equivalent of puppy mills. Some people want to create as many birds as possible to sell to anyone, for any reason, and aren't concerned about quality, just quantity. On the other end of the spectrum are people who want to devote themselves to the improvement of a specific purebred breed for preservation purposes and never sell poults, or only sell to approved homes after a lengthy application process. Most people fall somewhere in between. But we all need to make that decision. If the person with the Gould's wants to breed purebred Gould's and can't tell the difference between the domestic egg and the Gould's egg, then keeping them together might hold back his breeding program significantly. On the other hand, if he wants to breed purebred Gould's, and can tell the difference between the two eggs, and also wants to breed heritage-wild crosses as meat birds, I suspect they would sell for top dollar if properly advertised (although I'm not sure they would taste that much different, since much of the wild flavor comes from living in the wild, not simply from being a wild species). But my point is that not everyone wants to create mixed breed birds just because they can, and we don't know what this person's preferences are.

Does anyone know if a domestic-wild turkey cross is fertile? They are different species, so theoretically the crosses shouldn't be fertile (such as turkey-chicken crosses, donkey-horse crosses, tiger-lion crosses, all produce sterile offspring). But sometimes the crosses of very closely related species are an exception to that rule. That could effect the salability of any crosses that were created, since they could only be sold for meat or pets, but could not be used as part of a breeding flock if they were sterile.