Turkeys For 2013

[Reyvaughn]

I counted my hens for next year and it looks ilke I will have 15 laying hens for next year, so I'm looking at a crap load of eggs. So looks like I will be selling and incubating. I'm thinking about buying another incubator because I want to concentrate on incubating pea and turkey eggs next season.

If you have eggs for sale next year, please remember me? I would like to have your current line before you switch to Porters. I am looking for diversity yet.


I am still hoping to find someone local-ish to me to split a Porters order. Anyone?

 

[kuntrygirl]

I counted my hens for next year and it looks ilke I will have 15 laying hens for next year, so I'm looking at a crap load of eggs. So looks like I will be selling and incubating. I'm thinking about buying another incubator because I want to concentrate on incubating pea and turkey eggs next season.

If you have eggs for sale next year, please remember me?  I would like to have your current line before you switch to Porters.  I am looking for diversity yet.


I am still hoping to find someone local-ish to me to split a Porters order.  Anyone? 

Oh, I"ll have eggs alright. I'll put you down on the list. Thanks

 

[kuntrygirl]

I will probably have to put an ad on Craigslist looking for someone to split an order with. :/

 

[uphilljill]

One of my goals is to have most of my birds in the freezer by winter. This came about whenI was interested in becomeing more selfsufficeint. A number if issues are arising in the switchover. One is when natural feed from the land becomes unavailable is much earlier than I thought-- always going to the feed store and having readily available feed in a big is a totally different reality than providing my own feed. THis is a challenge, a bigger one than I realized. I need to slow down on my expectations and rework my model.

If any one knows----
DO the midget white or the beltsville mature quicker than the larger turkeys or do they require the same time to pack on the meat?

I think I know the answer but do not have first hand knowledge to be sure.

This is my first year with Midget Whites so I don't have personal experience processing them yet, but when I was researching the breed I saw that most breeders still recommend at least 6-8 months growth to develop full flavor and size. I can let you know how our Christmas turkey turns out...

So not much quicker growing than other heritage breeds, but I'd think that a smaller size bird should eat less...

Ours are still getting most of their food foraging, but that may change soon with the onset of cooler weather. I believe Flocksalot on BYC uses MWs for customer meat sales, so she may have a better idea of their feed-to-processing ratio.

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
It sounds nice now but I know next year, I will be pulling my hair out . This group loves to hide their nests in the large bush in front of the house and 3 of them love going to my neighbor's house and laying on the side of her barn. I have their behaviors down to a science. Now if the others get any bright ideas and go into the woods, then that willbe another story.

I just checked the Porter's site and I think i will order 8 poutls from them for 2014. I really want some Porter's BR. I hope to phase out all of my current blood line and have 100% Porters in 2 years.



Have you considered grading up your blood and that way continueing another line of BR. Just saying if we all have POrters, that is not a lot of genetic variability. A white feather is not the whole story, if you know what I mean.
Grading up? Explain please? Like have 2 lines of BRs?

BYC system is acting up again!!


An old breeding technique in livestock is grading up. It means changing from one breed to another over a number of genenerations. BY the 6th , or 5th, generation the offspring are almost pure ly the new breed. In this case you are adding a line not a breed . . . .

You could still have one line of BR-- it becomes a combined line of kuntrygirl-porter. Use the porters birds to add their genetics to yours.
THen you can proceed in one of two ways, or both:

1.Breed your toms to POrter hens and your hens to porter toms. Select offspring from these breedings, and breed toms from one group to hens of the other group. THis combines your BR genes equally with Porter genes. ( techinically not a grading up in the techinical sense)

2. Breed your toms to porter hens and your hens to porter toms. Select offspring from these breedings and breed back to the porter birds, and continue this for 5-6 generations. THese birds will become mostly Porter genetics.

Because you have not actually changed breeds, you can follow either breeding scheme. In both senerios selecting for the traits that you are looking for. What traits are you looking to change or improve by using the POrter birds??

 

[desertmarcy]

I saw a minimum was 8 for BR.

Porter's minimum order is 15 poults. You can mix and match different varieties. He has limits on the number of poults per breed, usually 6 or 8.

 

[desertmarcy]

I made a chart on my computer of proposed breeding pen set up for next year. I have 7 pens for breeding and one large grow-out pen I use for turkeys. If I am going to keep my Mottled Blacks, I am a pen short. Right now, most of the pens are being used to grow out turkeys. I have 3 pens with young hens and 3 pens with young toms, and 2 pens with my older, established breeding stock.
Then I made a list of which birds to keep and which are available for holiday processing. This is ridiculous, but I have down to keep 21 hens and 14 toms!! With so many rare color varieties, I am feeling like I should keep an extra tom for each breed. I have Narragansett, Royal Palm, Slate, Lavender, Red Slate, Lilac, Bourbon Red, Mottled Black, and Penciled Palm. I am also raising 2 other bloodlines beside Porter's of the Bourbon Red. So to keep an extra BR tom of the Porter line, and a tom from each of the other lines---that is 4 toms just for Bourbon Red. For all of you thinking about ordering from Porter for next year, just be aware that it doesn't always turn out the way you want. This is not just from Porter, but from anybody selling poults. Your plans can change depending on what you end up with. And not every bird may be of breeding quality. Of my 6 BRs from Porter, 2 didn't make it, so I only had 4---which is why I got the other bloodlines. I wanted to make sure I had enough for a good breeding group. Good thing, too, because 3 of the 4 are toms. Only one Porter hen. Now on the Penciled Palms, I only got 2, which luckily are a pair, because the tom he was using early on in the season was not very fertile. So I got 2 Red Penciled Palms and 2 Chocolate Penciled Palms as substitutes. All 4 of those are toms! I will keep one Red Penciled as my spare, but I am in limbo what to do with the Chocolate Penciled. Then with the Lilacs, I ordered 6 but only got 4 and Red Slates were my substitute, so I got 3 of those (one extra). Now that I have them, I am finding they are turning into a favorite color. So I am setting up a pen to breed the Red Slates, a pen I was not planning on!! See how this can get out of control?

 

[chicken pickin]

If you have eggs for sale next year, please remember me? I would like to have your current line before you switch to Porters. I am looking for diversity yet.


I am still hoping to find someone local-ish to me to split a Porters order. Anyone?

X2 id be happy to add some of your line to mine.

 

[kuntrygirl]

 

 

 

 

I counted my hens for next year and it looks ilke I will have 15 laying hens for next year, so I'm looking at a crap load of eggs. So looks like I will be selling and incubating. I'm thinking about buying another incubator because I want to concentrate on incubating pea and turkey eggs next season.

Wow! 15 laying hens sounds nice Tons of eggs. For next season I will have 2 Toms and 5-6 hens.

It sounds nice now but I know next year, I will be pulling my hair out . This group loves to hide their nests in the large bush in front of the house and 3 of them love going to my neighbor's house and laying on the side of her barn. I have their behaviors down to a science. Now if the others get any bright ideas and go into the woods, then that willbe another story.



I just checked the Porter's site and I think i will order 8 poutls from them for 2014. I really want some Porter's BR. I hope to phase out all of my current blood line and have 100% Porters in 2 years.

Have you considered grading up your blood and that way continueing another line of BR.  Just saying if we all have POrters, that is not a lot of genetic variability. A white feather is not the whole story, if you know what I mean. 

Grading up? Explain please? Like have 2 lines of BRs?

BYC system is acting up again!!


An old breeding technique in livestock is grading up. It means changing from one breed to another over a number of genenerations. BY the 6th , or 5th, generation the offspring are almost  pure ly the new breed. In this case you are adding a line not a breed . . . .

You could still have one line of BR-- it becomes  a combined line of kuntrygirl-porter. Use the porters birds to add their genetics to yours.
THen you can proceed in one of two ways, or both: 

1.Breed your toms to POrter hens and your hens to porter toms. Select offspring from these breedings, and breed toms from one group to hens of the other group. THis combines your BR genes equally with Porter genes.  ( techinically not a grading up in the techinical sense)

2. Breed your toms to porter hens and your hens to porter toms. Select offspring from these breedings and breed back to the porter birds, and continue this for 5-6 generations. THese birds will become mostly Porter genetics.

Because you have not actually changed breeds, you can follow either breeding scheme. In both senerios selecting for the traits that you are looking for. What traits are you looking to change or improve by using the POrter birds??

Oh, I like that. Thank you for educating me on that. Wonderful information!

As far as the traits, I would really like to see a darker/richer "red" color. For the last few years, I have hatched out a few lighter colored BRs and I don't want to get any more lighter ones. That would be the only trait that I would look to change. I'm 100% satisfied with mine. I have been having this same line for 10 years and I am happy with them. Just curious to see a darker BR.

What other traits do other people look to change or improve in their breeds/lines?

 

[Arielle]

I like that you like your line. Color isn't everythig-- health, vigor, growth and many other characteristics are very important. Perhaps the infusion of porters for color is just the shot in the arm you need to help fix that issue of pale/fding red. My birds from porters have had good vigor, and growth.

If you like your birds, I would definitely keep them and add in the porter if you want to alter the coloring. Like I said before, good to have a number of lines out there. If we all have exactly the same, that is not a lot of genetic diversity if something dire should happen.