Turkeys For 2013

[Arielle]

Well nearly 3 weeks ago I had pre-paid for some turkey poults. Then found out they were not the breeds I wanted! Yesterday I started looking and calling around trying to find some poults and finally found some. Even Porters was down to their choice. And I wanted my choice. lol but I also ordered some Welsummers 5 pullets and 1 rooster. I hope they are friendly and will get along with my other birds ok. I really like the idea that I will be able to tell which ones are pullets and roos from the start! But boy are they expensive! I hope they will be worth it!

Lost me-- who did you orderfrom? Porters doesn't have welsummers so another source??

 

[chickadoodles]

Lost me-- who did you orderfrom? Porters doesn't have welsummers so another source??

Porters said they can only do what ever assortment comes up! So I had to hunt for anyone that had poults, so I ordered from Cackle. I am still waiting on a delivery date.

 

[Arielle]

About feed-- I go thru a lot of feed between all the animals. About 1.2 tons a month in grain for all the animals. My ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of grain as it is so expensive--my prices have doubled in the last 3-4 years. Too much-- looking to improve the land for more grasses, brassicus, and seed plants like amaranth. Hoping to discover other possibilites to. My chickens sure like pumpkins, not sure about the turkeys eating such things. I might cut back on the turkeys, a lot.

How do you improve the grazing for the cattle?

The mixes for each kind of livestock is granular and gets mixed into the ground feed and pelleted for even distribution. THe net results can be a ration that is all pelleted; or a course feed combining cripmped oats, cracked corn and pellets, usually combined with molasses.

I have also been toying with fermented feed for the birds; they love it and thrive on it. IT made me think of the silage fed to dairy cattle-- do you use silage , perhaps in the winter months? ANd then I made the jump to horses, in Holland they feed silage at some farms. Makes me wonder if fermented feed can be fed to horses.

Each of the animals need a little different diet. However I am not convinced anymore that it is quite as the commercial grain producers would like us to think.

A layer hen needs more calcium; a layer pellet is an all in one. I have red some people on BYC feed a turkey ration with calcium to all the birds. THis is likely to be an over feeding of the hens on the protein, and as protein is the expensive nutrient in grains, the overall feeding is more expensive than need be. I do think if the hens feed range and get lots of grasses, they may very well benefit from the the higher protein grain as they will actually be eating less of it because of the grass intake. ANd the benifit of eating a few bugs is great for the amino acid profile.

 

[GotCoop]

Hello everyone, you all got me started down the turkey road with this thread in the begining of 2013. I got some midget whites and royal palms (accidentaly mixed in as poults with the MW) And I got some more from a different source 5 weeks later that I'm not sure exactly what they are. What would you call these colors, and what would you suspect is the breeding? The first picture is of 4 siblings about 12 weeks old. They came out of a hatching of 6; 2 bronzish, 1 gray, and 3 whitish poults. The gray and one white did not survive. The man I bought them from claimed they were going to be blue slates, but I saw a picture of the tom, he looked just like the red slate on Porter's site; and the poults seemed to initially imply red slate breeding results. But, now my light colored hens seem to have a more palm look to them. One has black and tan markings, the other gray and tan. Any guesses?

A cameo of the gray/tan hen


The last one is my MW and RP toms (one of the RPs has gray markings rather than black...does that make ita a blue palm?

 

[desertmarcy]

Hello everyone, you all got me started down the turkey road with this thread in the begining of 2013. I got some midget whites and royal palms (accidentaly mixed in as poults with the MW) And I got some more from a different source 5 weeks later that I'm not sure exactly what they are. What would you call these colors, and what would you suspect is the breeding? The first picture is of 4 siblings about 12 weeks old. They came out of a hatching of 6; 2 bronzish, 1 gray, and 3 whitish poults. The gray and one white did not survive. The man I bought them from claimed they were going to be blue slates, but I saw a picture of the tom, he looked just like the red slate on Porter's site; and the poults seemed to initially imply red slate breeding results. But, now my light colored hens seem to have a more palm look to them. One has black and tan markings, the other gray and tan. Any guesses?

A cameo of the gray/tan hen


The last one is my MW and RP toms (one of the RPs has gray markings rather than black...does that make ita a blue palm?

Hi and first let me say that last photo is great, with them all lined up like that! I am no expert on turkey color genetics, but if those all came from the same breeding, I would say the parents would have a mixed genotype in order to produce all those colors. Yes that one does look like a blue palm, so at least one parent needs to be carrying the slate gene in order to get the blue, and both parents need to carry the narragansett gene and the gray gene in order to get Royal Palm. Royal Palms are black winged bronze (b1), so each parent would also need to carry at least one b1 gene in order to get homozygous b1b1 which is Royal Palm. Now if the father was pure red slate like Porter's, that genotype is b+b+Dd, bronze with one slate gene, there is no black winged bronze gene there, so he could not be pure red slate in order for Royal Palm to result in the offspring.

You might consider joining Porter's Turkey Color Genetics group on Yahoo.

 

[GotCoop]

The toms are like joined at the hip. They follow me everywhere displaying. Thanks for the invite to color genetics group, I'll check it out, l'm curious about the possibilities when breeding them.

 

[joshm97]

I have 4 hens all purchased after at least 4 months. They are healthy and happy except their tail feathers all fell out. All of my hens. I don't understand because my toms have full fans along with all of my poults. Would it make a difference if the toms were hand raised and so arn't the poults. Or could it be lack of minerals and vitamins

 

[Arielle]

I have 4 hens all purchased after at least 4 months. They are healthy and happy except their tail feathers all fell out. All of my hens. I don't understand because my toms have full fans along with all of my poults. Would it make a difference if the toms were hand raised and so arn't the poults. Or could it be lack of minerals and vitamins

Not sure of the caue, at my house the lack of tail feathers is due to a duck chasing after the turkey toms!!

 

[chickadoodles]

Not sure of the caue, at my house the lack of tail feathers is due to a duck chasing after the turkey toms!!

 

[kuntrygirl]

Is there anyone who's hens have not started laying yet? I'm sure everyone who has hens should have seen a few eggs by now huh?