Whew, I was lucky this time

[fancyfowl4ever]

Been slowly seperating my birds into their individual breeds/species 4 days ago. So I caught and sorted everything but my Merriam Wild Tom(originally a wild caught bird, so a bit jumpy if you come too close so saved him for last). Last time I checked his wings were still clipped so I herd him in the corner of the run and try to net him and he climbs straight up the wire and over the fence......

..... turned out his clipped wing had already partially grown back -dang it- .
So he is loose and at first wanted back in, so I go out leave the door open and wanted to shoo him back in but I slipped and fell (rather ungracefully)..... that scared him and he took off running straight into the woods.

I was hoping he would come back the same night since his hen has been crying for him quite loudly....

Haven't seen him for days and wrote him off as coyote bait. Lo and Behold who is in the horse paddocks this morning looking for food, mister runaway

He was seriously hungry, first was running away from me as soon as he saw me but when I threw down a handful of food all fear was forgotten.

Took me about an hour of coaxing with food to get him back in the enclosure. So tonight in the dark in the coop I will grab him and first clip his wing again..... can't believe I almost lost my only merriams tom. I was looking so forward to Silver phase Merriams this year, it may happen after all!

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

lucky you! can't wait to see pics of those

 

[jasonm11]

Quote:
I have two Merriam toms and one hen, what is this silver phase you speak of. My hen and jake are about 5-6 months old and my tom is about 2 yrs old. I havent seen any silver in any of them.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

Silver phase is also referred to as oregon phase i believe. The Bird generally looks like a slightly darker Narragansett. Never seen them in the flesh until a friend of mine told me that his pair of merriams(wild caughts as well) hatch out silver phase hens every year.
Its sexlink dominant I think its called. Hens will express the colour even if they just have 1 gene, toms need two genes to express the colour.

So as far as I am aware my tom does not carry the silver gene, but my hen does(only 1 gene tho). So I will get Silver hens, normal hens, normal split to Silver toms and normal toms.

May have to hold back several toms next year and breed them to find out which one is split to hopefuly breed for a silver tom.

 

[jasonm11]

thank you, learned something new again.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

its one of those weird colours that pops up in wild turkey populations from time to time. There also is a reddish wild turkey colour mutation, haven't seen any in captivity pop up in that colour tho.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

well, little(BIG) bugger did not go in the coop tonight, he sat in the run in the corner.
Im going in there with a net and flashlight thinking to myself this will be fun, first approach he takes off onto the coops roof, i climb up there and he flies down

into the sheep pen, after getting back off the roof(in the dark, afraid of heights, net and flashlight in hand and screws sticking out everywhere on this thing - ouch) went chasing him for a solid hour in there, then I managed to herd him into my summer aviary for my Mandarins(full wire cover EVERYWHERE!).
I finally netted him

Got his wing clipped extremely short now and put him in a full wire cover pen with his silver gf, he better not get out of there!!!

He never used to be this hard to catch.......

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

you mean they're not supposed to roost on the chicken coop roof??? somebody better talk to my turkeys!

 

[NYRIR]

Oh yes,pics of this "randy" fellow please!

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Ugh - the bad boy!!

Glad you caught the nauty fella back though!