turkeys hatching

[naturallysweet]

Baby turkeys are the stupidest bird that ever was hatched. They will starve to death surrounded by food because they don't know that they are supposed to eat it. In the wild, the momma turkey will call them to their food and teach them how to eat. In big turkey facilities, they dye the food to make it look weird to encourage them to peck it.

If you don't have a momma turkey, then you can put a baby chick in with them to teach them what to do. Baby chickens are born knowing that they are supposed to eat and drink, so the turkeys will copy. Or you can dip their beaks in the water a few times and put something shiny near the food and water to encourage them to peck it.

I also get better luck when I keep the baby turkeys away from real dirt for the first month or two, especially the Red Bourbons. I can let the momma chickens and ducks take their brand new babies out on the dirt or use local sandy soil in the brooder box for the chickens, but the survival rate goes down for turkeys when I try this. (Don't know why.)

Turkeys are very stupid. If you bring them outside when they are several months old, the first thing that they will do is try to fly into a container of water or fly over a fence and forget how to fly back. Turn your back on them for a minute and they will find a way to commit suicide. It's best to treat them as special needs birds. I would never accuse a chicken of being smart, until they are measured against a turkey.

[Summerthyme]

Ugh... Royal Palms.

They are GORGEOUS. No question. But after raising them once, I'll never bother again. The hens- at 1 year old- dressed around 7#... I had CornishX chickens dress larger at 11 weeks! The toms aren't all that much bigger, either. And they have no breast to speak of.

It may be just me... but if I'm going to raise a turkey, I want some decent white breast meat, and I want it to be bigger than a chicken! LOL!

I actually saw one honest hatchery state that Royal Palms really weren't "suited for meat". Unfortunately, most of them just give the public relations version of the breed, and leave people to read between the lines. And of course, without experience, most don't translate "hens mature at around 11#" into "scrawny carcasses without a lot of meat".

As far as them being stupid... yeah, they really are pretty bad. I always have kept my hens penned, which has it's own drawbacks (other hens laying in the nest, the tom harassing them, etc). But I sold a trio of Naragansetts to my Amish neighbor. Their hens hatched out large clutches of healthy poults... one had an amazing 17 live babies. And then she promptly took them foraging into the woods across the road, and came back with ONE!! (Didn't seem to notice she was missing any, either!)

They were not impressed.

Summerthyme

[luvmyvet]

Royal Palms are very pretty birds and easily found in our area, but after reading about the amount of meat they provide (or lack of) we went with the spanish blacks and the narrangassetts to start out with as we want to raise them for meat and poult sales.

a buddy of ours offered us some of his Porters Sweetgrass and Oregon grey poults to raise, he said they had good growth and they have been enjoying them on the table regularly...made me a bit jealous, lol, as
we still haven't had any of ours, but we bought young adult birds as breeders and just this spring have gotten eggs to hatch out and grow.

hoping for a bountiful fall..

[luvmyvet]

earlier today I thought I heard a faint turkey gobble outside...well I went looking and I was shocked to find out it was our 3 week old tom's gobbling and doing the turkey tom dance at each other!

wow, now that is young and may be the norm, but I was shocked, lol.

I wish I'd had a camera with me and will try to catch these minature tom's in their full baby glory with their tail feathers fanned out, too cute!

[packyderms_wife]

I want some chocolates sooooo bad. Just discovered them yesterday. I like the Sweetgrass coloration also. Porter's heritage turkeys is a wonderful web site. I never knew there were so many varieties of turkeys or that they were so few, but are being bred back into viable existance.

Those are beautiful!




http://www.porterturkeys.com/chocolate.htm

[packyderms_wife]

earlier today I thought I heard a faint turkey gobble outside...well I went looking and I was shocked to find out it was our 3 week old tom's gobbling and doing the turkey tom dance at each other!

wow, now that is young and may be the norm, but I was shocked, lol.

I wish I'd had a camera with me and will try to catch these minature tom's in their full baby glory with their tail feathers fanned out, too cute!

Get that camera ready, I for one would love to see this! Critters can be quite entertaining!

K-

[goatlady]

Just keep a close eye out, lmv, I had 3 young toms 2 years ago and ended up with ONE cause he killed the other two to apparently get rid of competition! Would jump on their backs and rip the backs open while they were down and defenseless!

[luvmyvet]

Goatlady,

we learned a lesson about tom's this past year...

there was an "extra" tom we figured we would be able to eat and one day went out to the turkey pen and DH found him dead. Not a mark on him, nothing we could find for cause of death.

a few weeks later I caught our larger tom strangling another tom like a snake with his head wrapped around the tom's neck and his feet dangling off the ground!
I whacked him, he dropped the other tom and DH made a separate pen.

My question then is...how do we raise toms for eating if the other tom's will kill them? hope thats not a dumb obvious question, lol

[goatlady]

I would keep them all in separate chicken tractors until they outgrow that and then separate pens until butchering time I the only thing I can think of. UNless you have enough hens for each tom to have his own lady!

[Summerthyme]

I've never had any problem raising several toms for meat in the same pen. HOWEVER, they are butchered at 6 months or so... before they start gathering harems and fighting over the hens!

And yes, they do start their "strut and dance" routine way younger than you'd imagine, and it's adorable!

Like any other poultry, your window for butchering if you intend them to be roasters or fryers is fairly small. Once they reach a year old, they get TOUGH. It's not that they're not edible then (they certainly are), but you're talking stew, soup, maybe fricassee... long, slow cooking dishes.

The best place for "extra" toms (aside from your "heir and a spare", who might well need to be penned separately) is in the freezer.

Summerthyme