Turkey Talk for 2014

[SA Farm]

Is this hen or a gobbler I have been scratching my head one minute I say gobbler next minute its a hen it is 13 weeks old

At 13 weeks it is too soon to tell. You should know for sure by the time it is 6 months old.

x2, but I would lean more towards boy at this point based on the pictures.

 

[SA Farm]

Double post.

 

[klilly20]

x2, but I would lean more towards boy at this point based on the pictures.

I would hope so

 

[gevshiba]

Anyone have a guess why a couple of my jakes are going after one jenny? I swear they are out to kill her. They chase her around and try to stomp her. As far as I can see, she's not doing anything. She's older than they are and looks healthy. I shut one jake in the coop for about 10 minutes yesterday and the other one stopped chasing the jenny and went to eating. Both boys will go in the freezer as soon as I get a nice day and the time.

 

[R2elk]

Anyone have a guess why a couple of my jakes are going after one jenny? I swear they are out to kill her. They chase her around and try to stomp her. As far as I can see, she's not doing anything. She's older than they are and looks healthy. I shut one jake in the coop for about 10 minutes yesterday and the other one stopped chasing the jenny and went to eating. Both boys will go in the freezer as soon as I get a nice day and the time.

I seriously doubt that your jakes are trying to stomp your hen. I assume that you mean that she is lying down and they are climbing on her back and stepping on her in an attempt to breed with her. Because there are 2 jakes in with her neither will actually be able to breed her because they will interfere with each other. This is also a good way to get a hen killed because it is very easy for a hen to get her side ripped open by a spur when a tom slips or gets knocked off of her back.

Good luck.

 

[gevshiba]

I seriously doubt that your jakes are trying to stomp your hen. I assume that you mean that she is lying down and they are climbing on her back and stepping on her in an attempt to breed with her. Because there are 2 jakes in with her neither will actually be able to breed her because they will interfere with each other. This is also a good way to get a hen killed because it is very easy for a hen to get her side ripped open by a spur when a tom slips or gets knocked off of her back.

Good luck.

No, she's running from them and they are cornering her and trying to stomp her. She's not lying down, she's running. They are going after her like a rival tom. They are around 6-7 months old. She's 8-9 months old. They are jumping up in the air and coming down on her, once they get her cornered. It seems to be just the one jenny. They are going after her more than each other. They aren't aggressive towards me. I'm going on my 4th year with turkeys, so I do know what breeding looks like. I don't mean that in a snarky way, just an explanation.

 

[B J Hopkins]

Last week I found an egg in my turkey yard; I got to thinking I should look around to see if she has a hidden nest anywhere. I found a nest of 7 eggs in the turkey house buried in the bedding

Brought them in to put in an incubator. Was thinking if there are more in a week I'd put them in the incubator also. Problem is, later this afternoon the hen who'se laying was mauled by our neighbors 7mo old Labrador. She lost a lot of feathers but I didn't see any puncture wounds. She was pretty traumatized, so I don't know if she'll continue laying or not.

 

[CherMoz]

Last week I found an egg in my turkey yard; I got to thinking I should look around to see if she has a hidden nest anywhere. I found a nest of 7 eggs in the turkey house buried in the bedding

Brought them in to put in an incubator. Was thinking if there are more in a week I'd put them in the incubator also. Problem is, later this afternoon the hen who'se laying was mauled by our neighbors 7mo old Labrador. She lost a lot of feathers but I didn't see any puncture wounds. She was pretty traumatized, so I don't know if she'll continue laying or not.

I hope your turkey is okay!

 

[desertmarcy]

No, she's running from them and they are cornering her and trying to stomp her. She's not lying down, she's running. They are going after her like a rival tom. They are around 6-7 months old. She's 8-9 months old. They are jumping up in the air and coming down on her, once they get her cornered. It seems to be just the one jenny. They are going after her more than each other. They aren't aggressive towards me. I'm going on my 4th year with turkeys, so I do know what breeding looks like. I don't mean that in a snarky way, just an explanation.

I've never had that happen, no idea what is going through their turkey brains unless they are just hormonal and confused. I'd isolate those young toms before they seriously hurt your hen even if it means putting them in a dog crate. Give them some "time out" and return to the crate each time they start that behavior.

 

[gevshiba]

I've never had that happen, no idea what is going through their turkey brains unless they are just hormonal and confused. I'd isolate those young toms before they seriously hurt your hen even if it means putting them in a dog crate. Give them some "time out" and return to the crate each time they start that behavior.

Thank you. I might have mentioned before, my coop, which is at the neighbor's house, is built around a cattle handling system. My birds walk through the side of the head gate and down the chute to a side door to get to the run. It's crazy. So when the toms started messing with the roosters, I was going to build some kind of gate the chickens could get through to the coop, but not the turkeys. That way the hens could still go in and lay and the roosters could escape the turkeys. Then it hit me that the tail gate could be let down in the squeeze chute. It doesn't go all the way to the ground, so the chickens and smaller turkeys can pretty much run under. The toms have to scrunch down to get under, but they can. They don't really like to go under unless there's a good reason and chasing the roosters didn't qualify, most times. So I did it again for the jenny. It seems to have worked again. I haven't seen them chasing her anymore. Hopefully, they'll be in the freezer this weekend. I'm still not totally sure how many of the younger ones are toms, but there's at least 2, so all 4 of the older ones can probably go. I'm trying to get down to 5 or 6 turkeys, total.