Turkeys For 2013

[yinepu]

Quote:

THat is my kind of turkey!! Did you get them from POrters?? Where dsome of his cross bred projects?

What type of turkey is everone planning to eat for the upcoming Holidays? Mine will be BR.

I'm sure I'll be eating a few turkeys before then!! Might donate one for the family dinner-- might not-- they are butterball people .

Most of the originals birds were from Porters.. his Black Spanish.. then I ended up with some of his experimental Black/Red crosses (I think he is calling them his Rusty Blacks now?).. and a Narragansett tom I hatched from eBay eggs.. after a couple of generations of mixing the Narragansett with the black/red and back to the Black Spanish I ended up with the Birdzillas... but I have to give most of the credit to his Black Spanish... the ones I got from him were beasts.

I have no idea what the Narragansett may have been mixed with.. but he was a big ol boy too... so I doubt he was pure

I think the largest one was close to 50 pounds at slaughter.. with the "smaller" ones hitting around 35 to 40 pounds
most of the other turkeys I had at the time were closer to the 25 to 30 pound mark..

 

[racinchickins]

What type of turkey is everone planning to eat for the upcoming Holidays? Mine will be BR.

We are doing two. A heritage bronze and a bronze/chocolate mix.

 

[racinchickins]

lol.. I would be interested in some poults next spring too... or hatching eggs..

I'd love to get some MW hatching eggs too!

 

[uphilljill]

What type of turkey is everone planning to eat for the upcoming Holidays? Mine will be BR.

We will be having our first home-grown turkey (Midget White) for Thanksgiving.

I'm keeping a breeding trio, otherwise we'd be having one for Christmas too. Looks like I'll have to get a Bronze or BR from a neighboring farmer for that meal. They do a great job, but hoping this will be my last processed turkey purchase!

 

[Reyvaughn]

I got my BBBs for the holidays. At 4 months, all but the one crippled girl are heavy and developing some nice breasts. The other crippled girl is quite small, but she'll make a good soup for us.

So glad you guys are bird people. Saying that to anyone else would have made me feel really, really dirty.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I got my BBBs for the holidays.  At 4 months, all but the one crippled girl are heavy and developing some nice breasts.  The other crippled girl is quite small, but she'll make a good soup for us.

So glad you guys are bird people.  Saying that to anyone else would have made me feel really, really dirty.

I had a hen that broke her ankle and then it healed but she eneded up getting a swollen hock, so I processed her. She was delicious. She was small but she fed 6 adults. No need to feel guilt or dirty. We love talking turkey and eatin' turkey.

 

[kuntrygirl]

How do you all process your turkeys? Do you find one method is better than another method?

 

[chicken pickin]

What type of turkey is everone planning to eat for the upcoming Holidays? Mine will be BR.

I wanted mine to be BR but I sold too many poults early on and only have 5 BRs left growing out. 3 of which are hens which will be added to my Breeding pen and 1 is too young for processing. That leaves one remaining BR Tom and the 4 BBWs I bought from the feed store. My neighbors are set on having a heritage turkey for the 1st time this thanksgiving and wanted to reserve him. The idea of a family tasting something new and wonderful, also creating cliental, not too mention keeping neighbors happy with my "zoo" over here I opted to let them have my remaining BR and I will have the BBW this year.

Next year though My first May hatch Im keeping all of them to grow out and then I will sell the remaining poults through out the rest of Spring and Summer. Im not buying BBW next year, not that I don't like the variety, I just want to raise heritage for now on.

 

[kuntrygirl]

What type of turkey is everone planning to eat for the upcoming Holidays? Mine will be BR.

I wanted mine to be BR but I sold too many poults early on and only have 5 BRs left growing out. 3 of which are hens which will be added to my Breeding pen and 1 is too young for processing. That leaves one remaining BR Tom and the 4 BBWs I bought from the feed store. My neighbors are set on having a heritage turkey for the 1st time this thanksgiving and wanted to reserve him. The idea of a family tasting something new and wonderful, also creating cliental, not too mention keeping neighbors happy with my "zoo" over here I opted to let them have my remaining BR and I will have the BBW this year.

Next year though My first May hatch Im keeping all of them to grow out and then I will sell the remaining poults through out the rest of Spring and Summer. Im not buying BBW next year, not that I don't like the variety, I just want to raise heritage for now on.

How many poults did you hatch this year?

 

[chicken pickin]

How many poults did you hatch this year?

Im not sure I didn't keep very good record. Next year I plan to keep very accurate records. With only 2 hens for our 1st breeding season and only one hen was allowing mating for most of the summer and both hens going broody for a month which resulted in no poults we didn't get many poults maybe 20-30.