Turkey Talk for 2014

[chicken pickin]

Quote:

Looks delicious !


I have a question for you all...

Do you ever get involved in the turkey squabbles?

I was outside plowing snow and I saw one young TOM. The one I gave a stay of execution to last Sunday pulling the snood of another young tom.

He was relentless in his attack. He pulled the snood and waddle and would not let go no matter how hard the other tom tried to get away. I went and broke them up and as soon as I turned around he was attacking and pulling the snood and waddle again. I broke it up again and told the aggressor I was going to pull his snood and see how he liked it. Needless to say he did not let me catch him. It was as he could read my mind.


I understand they need to jockey for position but this was excessive. The worst part is once the aggressor had the snood the other toms joined him in harassing the victim.

I am thinking there will be no Xmas pardons this year!

Aggressive sparring is normal and and can happen quite often. I used to get nervous and break them up but I found it was quite dangerous for me to try to get in the middle of them. They only have eyes on each other at that point and could careless who or what is in the middle of them. I find that letting them duke it out is ok. Sometimes it lasts a bit but eventually the beta will cower and back down and the alpha will stop.

That said, if I see that it is severe enough that damage or injury is occurring I would not hesitate to step in. Usually the worst sparring happens in spring and summer when they are fighting over the hens this time of year the sparring is more like squabbling. I let them squabble. If you have your Toms in with hens you could remove the Toms and put them in a separate pen if you have the space. That usually does the trick and the Toms calm down.

How many Toms and hens do you have?

 

[duluthralphie]

.

How many Toms and hens do you have?

I have too many toms and not enough hens.

I have 5 toms and 4 hens. I am only going to keep my old Tom and one of the young ones. They are may hatches but do not seem real big for eating yet. I was hoping to get another month or two on them before sending them to freezer camp.

The old tom is a slate red the younger turkeys are slate blues. The old tom will be placed in a pen with the slate red hen, the other will get the 3 young hens.

 

[TeaChick]

These have been around for years but they're always good for a chuckle!

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: I had to separate some this week from fighting so viciously. I now only have one tom and one or two hens per pen. I have some 5 month olds that I will have to separate this next week.

 

[LovedMyAlydar]

Quote: We cooked him up for Thanksgiving and he was fantastic. His meat was so tender and juicy it was almost like butter. Seriously, I have never had such a wonderful tasting turkey meat before, and we used to get fresh turkey all the time, but nothing like this guy. I guess it might be because he was a heritage breed, not really sure. But there was plenty of meat to go around and lots for leftovers. I was amazed by the amount of fat under his skin, yet when we made the gravy there was not tons of fat sitting on the top like I get from store bought turkeys.

We are sold, no more store bought nasty turkey, home grown from now on.

My mother in Michigan of course had to tell me what a cruel person I was to kill the poor turkey and that my husband looked like a mass murderer with a dead turkey. LOL. I told her at least he lived a good life and where did she think the turkey she was eating coming from? Duh? Oh well, I am happy, the family down here in Kentucky is happy. No worries, we still have 5 more left. Plenty of good eating there.

And the brine worked out great. We soaked him for 24 hours in the mixture you suggested on the back porch. Thank you so much!!!

 

[devinandfeather]

Hi the hen that i had sitting didn't hatch anything out eggs got rotten from storms so upset

 

[Sueg4332]

Seriously, you keep chicken fat and use it to cook with??

HOW?


I threw out a ton of fat. I thought it was a waste throwing it out but did not know of any uses for it. If I thought it had s use I would keep it.

I am kind of a hoarder that way. I have nearly 40 pounds of pig fat in the freezer. The processing plant did not give me back my beef fat, which means next time I have to process my own cow!

I cut the pork fat into small portions to fit in those wire bird feeders for suet. I will feed it to my wild birds all winter along with using some to make wieners and sausage from chicken and pork roasts. ( I am not a big roast fan) Matter of fact I will grind up many of the beef roasts for hamburger.

AND on another note. I have check all the buildings tonight, I can safely say that da*n barred rock is not in them, so she must be in her coop tonight! ( maybe).

I would do a head count, but I have no idea what the actual number of chickens or barred rocks I have is. I know it is 35 give or take a few.

I save my chicken fat it makes the best pie crust for chicken pot pie. I like beef fat browned to favor dull tasting beef cuts.

 

[Pretty Chickens]

It's that time again for us to talk about our Turkey plans for 2014. Laying season has come upon some of us already and for others, laying season will be here in a few months to many months down the line. Let's talk about our turkey plans for 2014.

A few things we can discuss could be.

1. Are you prepared for Turkey season for 2014?
2. When do your hens start laying eggs?
3. What breeds do you plan on raising for 2014?
4. What is your current Tom/Hen Ratio?
5. How many poults do you plan on hatching?
6. Did you order any poults from other hatcheries? If so, what hatchery, what breed and how many are you expecting?
7. Are you ordering turkey eggs from someone? If so, how many?
8. Will you be using an incubator to hatch your turkey eggs?
9. Do you want your hens to go broody so that they can hatch eggs?
10. Will you be selling eggs and/or poults?
11. What are your feed plans for 2014? Anyone trying fermented feed for their flock?
12. Do you have your housing ready for your poults and turkeys?
13. How many turkeys will you be processing for your freezer for 2014?
14. What did you do this year that you want to do different next year (2014)?

PLEASE feel free to post ANYTHING you want about your turkeys, to include posting pics of those cute poults and those handsome and beautiful turkeys. Our discussion is not limited to the above topics. Especially for those who need help with hatching, poult problems, etc. No question is a dumb question, so don't be afraid to ask anything. We are all here to learn and we can learn from each other. Regardless if you keep your turkeys for pets or for food. It doesn't matter. Your problem and experience with your eggs, incubating, hatching, brooding, raising poults/adults can help the next person.

We are all turkey lovers and there are A LOT of experienced turkey people on this thread who are more than willing to help. So let's talk turkey!

When can my turkey hen lay eggs?

 

[Pretty Chickens]

When can my turkey hen lay eggs?

I have only one and I love her. Will she lay eggs?

 

[Book Em Danno25]

what kind of eggs?