Turkey Talk for 2014

[gevshiba]

These young beaus showed up this morning, trying to woo the girls. All appear to be jakes, looking for their first flock. My girls are locked up, but are more than willing to be woo'd. I can only imagine the chaos of 11 boys fighting over my 6 hens. My rooster has probably had a heart attack. He thinks all the hens, turkey included, are his to guard. There's no way to keep the wild birds away from mine. Plus, I live right on a lake. It's within a minutes walk of my coop. I'll just have to cross my fingers and say a prayer that my birds stay healthy.

 

[JJSS89]

I'd wager that your birds probably have more "funk" than the wild ones

Nothing personal, I think in the confined spaces that domestic turkeys just have more "baggage" than the wild ones.

 

[AmericanMom]

So it begins!!! Lockdown on the first six eggs!! I cant believe last year at this time I had posted how much I wanted to raise Turkeys and here we are

I candled them as I moved them to the hatching incubator, one of the air cells has dipped pretty far down and one looks to have not grown enough...Caused me some stress but within an hour of moving them and me constantly going in and checking the temp I stood there with a flashlight looking to see the humidity read out and darn if one of those little buggers didn't wiggle, thought, no.. its to soon and as I thought that another one gave a wiggle, called hubby in and as we stood there and he whistled each of the six eggs moved!! I am trying to not be overly excited, a wiggle is not a hatched chick and moving them from the circulated air incubator over to a still air has given me some moments of stress as the temp seems to want to hover at around 100.4-101.3 ...... When I hatched Turkeys last year I had lost the entire first batch stressing over the humidity, with the second batch I decided to not stress and didn't keep track of it, added moisture and just watched to see how they were when they hatched, got a 98% hatch rate out of that batch so I adopted that with all my hatching... I am back to being a worry wart, added the wet sponges and even a small jelly jar of water and Humidity wants to settle at 40%.... I'm going to back up and see how the first one goes, if it looks like its not enough I will adjust it, but I am more afraid of repeating last years mistake.
I've got three more weeks of this worry lol... Hope you guys will hold my hand thru this

 

[chickadoodles]

These young beaus showed up this morning, trying to woo the girls. All appear to be jakes, looking for their first flock. My girls are locked up, but are more than willing to be woo'd. I can only imagine the chaos of 11 boys fighting over my 6 hens. My rooster has probably had a heart attack. He thinks all the hens, turkey included, are his to guard. There's no way to keep the wild birds away from mine. Plus, I live right on a lake. It's within a minutes walk of my coop. I'll just have to cross my fingers and say a prayer that my birds stay healthy.

I hope so to for your sake!

 

[chickadoodles]

So it begins!!! Lockdown on the first six eggs!! I cant believe last year at this time I had posted how much I wanted to raise Turkeys and here we are

I candled them as I moved them to the hatching incubator, one of the air cells has dipped pretty far down and one looks to have not grown enough...Caused me some stress but within an hour of moving them and me constantly going in and checking the temp I stood there with a flashlight looking to see the humidity read out and darn if one of those little buggers didn't wiggle, thought, no.. its to soon and as I thought that another one gave a wiggle, called hubby in and as we stood there and he whistled each of the six eggs moved!! I am trying to not be overly excited, a wiggle is not a hatched chick and moving them from the circulated air incubator over to a still air has given me some moments of stress as the temp seems to want to hover at around 100.4-101.3 ...... When I hatched Turkeys last year I had lost the entire first batch stressing over the humidity, with the second batch I decided to not stress and didn't keep track of it, added moisture and just watched to see how they were when they hatched, got a 98% hatch rate out of that batch so I adopted that with all my hatching... I am back to being a worry wart, added the wet sponges and even a small jelly jar of water and Humidity wants to settle at 40%.... I'm going to back up and see how the first one goes, if it looks like its not enough I will adjust it, but I am more afraid of repeating last years mistake.
I've got three more weeks of this worry lol... Hope you guys will hold my hand thru this

Good luck!

You'll do fine.

 

[celestialdreamer]

Hi there. This is our 4th year of raising heritage turkeys and they are one of the areas on our farm we have chosen to expand rather than downsize. We raised Bourbon Reds previously and bought some Blue Slates this past summer as a replacement. The Bourbon Reds were actually fairly aggressive, especially towards chickens and killed my favorite hen Also the BR hens were only 9-10lbs at a year old even when well fed. We heard the Blue Slates were very docile and tend to be bigger, plus we loved the colors. So far the BS we harvested were nice size and have all had great temperaments.

My almost 9 year old son is the "turkey whisperer" here and they are mainly his project with some parental oversight of course. He just adores raising turkeys both because of their personalities and because it is his favorite meat. He opted to retain a Blue Slate tom and Blue Slate hen that are very calm and one remaining Bourbon Red hen (she's primarily his pet, but is a good mama too). I'm expecting them to start laying eggs anytime as "Tommy" is strutting and starting to attempt to breed the 2 hens. We gave them their own pasture and small barn, so we hope they will raise their babies themselves for us. We will be likely raising all poults hatched for our poultry supply for our family of 8 this year, possibly retaining another BS hen for breeding depending on how things go. I'm curious if anyone has experience with crossing Blue Slate X Bourbon Red or similar breeds. I'm wondering if there may be some "hybrid vigor" with the cross poults? If we end up selling any poults we'd sell the pure BS first and plan to keep the crosses for the freezer.

 

[mymilliefleur]

I got a turkey egg out of my older hen the other day! Very exciting, I can't wait to get some set in my incubator soon!

 

[chickadoodles]

Hello and welcome to the Turkey thread.
I don't know much about the cross of BS and BR. Sorry. I wish you luck with your plans.

Congrats on your turkey egg!

 

[SilkieSensation]

Hi there. This is our 4th year of raising heritage turkeys and they are one of the areas on our farm we have chosen to expand rather than downsize. We raised Bourbon Reds previously and bought some Blue Slates this past summer as a replacement. The Bourbon Reds were actually fairly aggressive, especially towards chickens and killed my favorite hen  Also the BR hens were only 9-10lbs at a year old even when well fed. We heard the Blue Slates were very docile and tend to be bigger, plus we loved the colors. So far the BS we harvested were nice size and have all had great temperaments.

My almost 9 year old son is the "turkey whisperer" here and they are mainly his project with some parental oversight of course. He just adores raising turkeys both because of their personalities and because it is his favorite meat. He opted to retain a Blue Slate tom and Blue Slate hen that are very calm and one remaining Bourbon Red hen (she's primarily his pet, but is a good mama too). I'm expecting them to start laying eggs anytime as "Tommy" is strutting and starting to attempt to breed the 2 hens. We gave them their own pasture and small barn, so we hope they will raise their babies themselves for us. We will be likely raising all poults hatched for our poultry supply for our family of 8 this year, possibly retaining another BS hen for breeding depending on how things go. I'm curious if anyone has experience with crossing Blue Slate X Bourbon Red or similar breeds. I'm wondering if there may be some "hybrid vigor" with the cross poults? If we end up selling any poults we'd sell the pure BS first and plan to keep the crosses for the freezer.

That cross should produce red slates. My red slate tom who was hatched in May 2014 is already bigger than my blue slate tom hatched in July 2013. I can't say for sure that it's purely due to the cross because I did not hatch the blue boy. I got him at around 3 months old & he is smaller than the 2 yr old lavender (lightest shade of blue slate) tom he replaced. It may have been feed & nutrition differences as poults making the majority of the difference.

 

[celestialdreamer]

Red Slate is pretty much what I was imagining that the cross would look like, very pretty birds. I am hoping that we will get more growthy turkeys out of the cross than our Bourbon Reds were. Now I just need the girls to start laying!