YO GEORGIANS! :)

Turkey processing is done.
Bartered for 10 poults - $80. Feed cost -$223. Ice for processing - $32. Bedding gets calculated into my overall enterprise expenses since it's hard to determine who uses what. Total cost comes to $335.
1 had to be put down at 8 weeks due to a compound fracture if the wing. The rest went 16-17 weeks. Longer than I should have but it is what it is.
Live weight was 253 pounds. Processed 174 pounds of cuts, ground and sausage. Not organic nor non-gmo but as close to pasture raised as I can get. $1.92 per pound is pretty good in my book. Especially when you look at these retail prices - http://www.whiteoakpastures.com/poultry/pasture-raised-hand-butchered-turkey.asp
 
@brucifer
The pheasant trays may work for coturnix quail. The quail trays are really for bob-white size eggs. I incubate eggs that are 14 - 16 grams and they just barely fit in the quail rails. And I can only fill one row in each rail. If you want to get some to test the fit or to hatch, let me know. I highly recommend keeping your little styrofoam incubators to hatch in. You can keep humidity at the right levels for incubating and hatching separately. Plus, you don't have to worry as much about sterilizing your cabinet if the mess in in the smaller ones.

@GAMarans Do you have quail trays for your cabinet? Or have you been using the styrofoam incubators for quail?
 
View attachment 1095701 My Buff Orpington is trying to go broody on me I think. I don't have any eggs for her to hatch out. If she is going to go broody and I allow it I would like something special like lavender splash or blue Orphington eggs. I don't have a lot of room for her to hatch though just got rid of a bunch of roos and would need to get rid of my spent hens but it's hard to let them go because there so cuddly. I'm getting some Silkies in about a month and have plenty of room for them. I have the hatch itch but need to lay off. So I busied myself with pictures of my current Orphington chicks this morning and tried not to think about it. It's hard to say stop.View attachment 1095694 View attachment 1095695 View attachment 1095697
Really great pics!
 
@brucifer
The pheasant trays may work for coturnix quail. The quail trays are really for bob-white size eggs. I incubate eggs that are 14 - 16 grams and they just barely fit in the quail rails. And I can only fill one row in each rail. If you want to get some to test the fit or to hatch, let me know. I highly recommend keeping your little styrofoam incubators to hatch in. You can keep humidity at the right levels for incubating and hatching separately. Plus, you don't have to worry as much about sterilizing your cabinet if the mess in in the smaller ones.

@GAMarans Do you have quail trays for your cabinet? Or have you been using the styrofoam incubators for quail?
@Tabasco Jack : I appreciate your advice. After reading up a bit on the pheasant egg trays, I think you're right about coturnix quail eggs being able to fit them. I know Silkie eggs do. Maybe I can bring one of the trays over to your place one day and see if a quail egg will fit without falling through. However, we still need to order some egg trays for larger-fowl eggs. I'll probably do that later tonight.

I've been a bit surprised on the price of the plastic egg trays. I did some online shopping and found a source on eBay, so I'll probably go with them unless you have a better recommendation.

Lisa found someone with a GQF rack w/ breeding pens for sale, but I would rather build my own. I'm still waiting for an opportunity to jump into the quail thing.

One of my breeder friends who also has a GQF cabinet uses his old styrofoam incubators as hatchers for the same reasons you mention. They're also much easier to visually monitor without disturbing the incubation environment of other set eggs. That's how we will use them too.
 
Well,in that case, I'm sitting on a gold mine here. Maybe I'll hatch some more. If they just weren't so dang messy.
You have the coolest place! I wish we had more land to play with--2 acres zoned Ag is just not anything I could put more than my 20 or so birds on. Maybe one day we'll get a larger parcel & be able to expand the number of animals we have in good conscience. The land can only take so much.

FYI for duck confit you just need a duck cut into pieces & 4 cups of melted duck fat to cover them. The beauty of preserving it this way is that you can pull as many pieces out as you like and crisp them up in a skillet. Just reuse the oil. Amazingly good. I wonder if I could do ducks at our lake place? Do they stay in one place or would they leave me?
 

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