Turkey Talk for 2014

[payner59]

Beautiful pictures Jryan18.  It's still way too young for me to tell via pictures.  At that age I could only tell on mine based on behavior between them, but with only one that may not work for you.  Others with more experience may be able to give you a guess.

Why do you think your hatch rates are so low?  Are these shipped eggs that arrived in bad shape, in which case 8% and 25% are par for the course?  If the eggs aren't shipped, do you think there's a fertility issue, or an egg storage issue, or an incubation issue?  If you think it's an incubation issue, here's some links for turkey egg incubation: 
1)  https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/turkey-incubation-and-hatching-guide
2)  http://www.porterturkeys.com/egghatchingtips.htm

Sonderah, yes, a mohawk is typical for an adult female, as the adult males have a featherless head.  But the transition between poult down and full adult glory has many, many stages, so you have to be careful not to place too much importance on a single characteristic during this stage of growth.  There's also a lot of subtle differences between individuals of the same gender, so that can mess up your predictions also.  With my seven poults, I changed my mind several times when they were 1-3 months old when I just looked at appearance.  But when I looked just at their behavior with each other, there was never any doubt -- my original suspicion of 2 toms and 5 hens held out.

What kind of behaviors can you look for? I have a bunch of poults on there way.

 

[chickadoodles]

I lost one of my BBB hens today. I think it was coyotes. They came over the fence. My tom put up a valiant fight, by the looks of it, but he's dead too. So sad

I am so sorry for your loss.

 

[sonderah]

How old were they when the other one died? 

In my group of seven, the two toms were numbers 2 and 4 in weight at 2 weeks old; numbers 1 and 3 at 2 weeks, 4 days old; and numbers 1 and 2 at 3 weeks, 3 days old, but there were no significant gaps in weights at these ages yet. Then at 5 weeks, 1 day old there were two groupings of weight, with the two males clustered together a bit heavier than the female cluster.  At 8 weeks, 6 days old, one of the males really pulled out ahead, being one pound heavier than the other male, and one of the females pulled slightly ahead of her pack, being only 1/3 lb smaller than the smaller male.  So if I were judging gender just by weight AND I knew that there were 2 males in the group, then I would have been accurate at that age.  But if I didn't know that there were 2 males in that group, the weight clustering would have indicated only one male, because at that point there was a much larger gap between male #1 and male #2 than there was between male #2 and female #1.  So judging gender by weight isn't always accurate, but certainly can be a piece of the puzzle, starting between 3-5 weeks, and assuming that all poults are equally healthy.  In this situation, where there's only two and the smaller poult died, I would not use size as a factor at all.  A male poult with an underlying health issue, especially one severe enough that it eventually leads to death, could easily be smaller than a healthy female at any stage of growth.

They were about 4 1/2-5 weeks. I hadn't thought about maybe the other not being healthy. They seemed well, but don't birds usually. :/ The poult that died had gotten into the nest with the newest mom and her her little brood and that's where I found it dead. It wasn't bloodied up or anything, so idk if she killed it or it just died.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

I lost one of my BBB hens today.  I think it was coyotes.  They came over the fence.  My tom put up a valiant fight, by the looks of it, but he's dead too.  So sad

Good grief, that's awful. So sorry to hear.

R2elk, thank you for the link. Very helpful!

 

[Arielle]

I lost one of my BBB hens today. I think it was coyotes. They came over the fence. My tom put up a valiant fight, by the looks of it, but he's dead too. So sad

OH no!!!

THe coyotes must be hungry-- around here they have pups to feed this time of year . . . .my DH often walks the fence lines with the dogs and they both pee along the way when we are having extreme issues with the coyote. Of course, we live in the woods with no neighbor in view. lol

 

[Sydney Acres]

I lost one of my BBB hens today. I think it was coyotes. They came over the fence. My tom put up a valiant fight, by the looks of it, but he's dead too. So sad

Gevshiba, I'm so sorry. That's horrible. Your tom was very brave, as BBBs are not built to fight.

I hate coyotes. I used to think they were just a normal part of nature and we should all just try to co-exist, and then one looked at Sydney and the mama lion came out in me!!

I have invested thousands of dollars in major perimeter fencing plus interior crossfencing, which I would need anyway, but it's modified to prevent coyotes from getting in. I had a bigger problem with them digging under than climbing over, but my fences are 4,5, and 8 feet tall, depending on the area, and now I keep both sides of the fence cleared at least 8 feet back (my neighbors love that I volunteer to clear their fence lines). When I built the new fences I rented a ditchwitch and dug an 18" trench, then buried 2X4" welded wire 18" below ground and attached it to the lowest horizontal wire of the above-ground portion of the fence. My fence builders thought I was crazy, but I haven't had a coyote on that portion of my property since the new fence was put up -- they just can't dig in, and because the fence line is cleared, their tendency is to pace and run the fence until they find an entry point, or until something interferes with their movement. With a clear running path and no entry point, they just don't get in. In my area (and it may be different with different coyote populations, as they learn from each other very quickly) the coyotes aren't hand-over-hand climbers over a vertical fence. They're diggers, or find a platform to help them jump over a fence, or use their front paws to help them scramble over. But if the fence is tall enough that they have to use both their front and back paws to climb, they don't do it. My neighbor's previous Husky would climb hand-over-hand up any height of fence, but luckily my local coyotes haven't learned that yet.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Quote:
I have heard that works very well in most coyote populations, and not at all for others. They just learn so darn fast and pass that information on to their pack, and down many generations. So what works in one area may be useless in other areas.

A friend of mine used to go to his local zoo and get wolf poop. In most areas of the country, coyotes and wolves don't share the same territory (although there are some that do now, with habitats shrinking). So a tiny turd every 10-20 feet was all it took to keep his property coyote free.

I have gone to the local zoo to get mountain lion poop to keep the deer out of my orchard, before I was able to put up the deer fence. It worked instantly, but storing and handling big cat poop wasn't something I wanted to do long term.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Quote:
It was a combination of how much they displayed, how they flirted with each other, and intuition. It also required spending a lot of time with them, and them being tame enough and having the right environment where they would display nature behaviors in front of me.

Both the males and females displayed when young, but the males did it more frequently, held the display longer (typically the females did just a quick display that was gone in 30-60 sec), and frequently did it for no obvious reason. The females tended to display if they were jostled or annoyed or jealous, and the boys just wanted to be looked at. One of my boys started displaying to me VERY early (don't remember exactly, but I think 2-3 weeks old), but didn't display to anyone else. He had been handled extensively as a baby and it was attention-getting behavior (and OMG tooooo cute to see a poult display while he is still wearing down and only some feathers). The rest of the group, including the second male, all started displaying within the same 2-4 week period.

Once they had been out free ranging long enough to be confident in the yard, they started being goofy. Not just the usual joy of first being let outside, but the lazy afternoons when they would be milling about, often times they would start being silly and showing off. I'd sit on the grass with them, and the females tended to run circles around me, or around the males, hopping and skipping and just being silly little girls, just like 5 year old little human girls do. The boys, on the other hand, wanted to do adventurous stuff first. They were the birds that first wanted to get out of their yard, or fly too high in the tree and were scared to get down, or the first to try a new food, that sort of thing. After a few weeks the girls way outstripped the boys for getting into trouble, but the boys started out as the big adventurers. Then fast forward 1-2 months and they're starting to flirt with one another. Even though they have no idea what they're doing, and they're months away from trying to breed, and they haven't yet developed the gender differences in appearance, the behavior is obvious. The girl hops and skips and runs circles around the boy, and the boy stands and watches and enjoys the display, then the boy approaches the girl and puts a wing over her. She looks shocked and back away and starts skipping circles around him again. That happened over and over for several weeks. Then the girls starting flirting for the boys, but would lay down in front of them after running in circles. The boy would either put a foot on her, in which case she would get up and leave, or he would stand in front and nuzzle her head with his, or lay down beside her, sometimes putting his wing over her. It was just too cute, but unmistakable who were the boys and who were the girls.

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
I have heard that works very well in most coyote populations, and not at all for others. They just learn so darn fast and pass that information on to their pack, and down many generations. So what works in one area may be useless in other areas.

A friend of mine used to go to his local zoo and get wolf poop. In most areas of the country, coyotes and wolves don't share the same territory (although there are some that do now, with habitats shrinking). So a tiny turd every 10-20 feet was all it took to keep his property coyote free.

I have gone to the local zoo to get mountain lion poop to keep the deer out of my orchard, before I was able to put up the deer fence. It worked instantly, but storing and handling big cat poop wasn't something I wanted to do long term.
Population behavior varies-- we live next to a large tract of land that is full of easy food for the coyote-- plenty of wild turkey and squirrel, and such. Really depends on how hungry the coyotes are as to how much effort they put into getting the livestock.

BIg cat poo-- if only they knew how much money people would pay for that stufff!!! ROFL

 

[payner59]

Omg....how stinkin cute. I can't wait to see it. Thank you for the info!!

It was a combination of how much they displayed, how they flirted with each other, and intuition.  It also required spending a lot of time with them, and them being tame enough and having the right environment where they would display nature behaviors in front of me.

Both the males and females displayed when young, but the males did it more frequently, held the display longer (typically the females did just a quick display that was gone in 30-60 sec), and frequently did it for no obvious reason.  The females tended to display if they were jostled or annoyed or jealous, and the boys just wanted to be looked at.  One of my boys started displaying to me VERY early (don't remember exactly, but I think 2-3 weeks old), but didn't display to anyone else.  He had been handled extensively as a baby and it was attention-getting behavior (and OMG tooooo cute to see a poult display while he is still wearing down and only some feathers).  The rest of the group, including the second male, all started displaying within the same 2-4 week period.

Once they had been out free ranging long enough to be confident in the yard, they started being goofy.  Not just the usual joy of first being let outside, but the lazy afternoons when they would be milling about, often times they would start being silly and showing off.  I'd sit on the grass with them, and the females tended to run circles around me, or around the males, hopping and skipping and just being silly little girls, just like 5 year old little human girls do.  The boys, on the other hand, wanted to do adventurous stuff first.  They were the birds that first wanted to get out of their yard, or fly too high in the tree and were scared to get down, or the first to try a new food, that sort of thing.  After a few weeks the girls way outstripped the boys for getting into trouble, but the boys started out as the big adventurers.   Then fast forward 1-2 months and they're starting to flirt with one another.  Even though they have no idea what they're doing, and they're months away from trying to breed, and they haven't yet developed the gender differences in appearance, the behavior is obvious.  The girl hops and skips and runs circles around the boy, and the boy stands and watches and enjoys the display, then the boy approaches the girl and puts a wing over her.  She looks shocked and back away and starts skipping circles around him again.  That happened over and over for several weeks.  Then the girls starting flirting for the boys, but would lay down in front of them after running in circles.  The boy would either put a foot on her, in which case she would get up and leave, or he would stand in front and nuzzle her head with his, or lay down beside her, sometimes putting his wing over her.  It was just too cute, but unmistakable who were the boys and who were the girls.