Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: BeeMaster2 on April 19, 2019, 09:17:11 pm

Title: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: BeeMaster2 on April 19, 2019, 09:17:11 pm
Last Monday or oldest hen hatched 4 baby turkeys. We had been taking the eggs from our younger turkey and when we had 10 of them we put them in the incubator. We had one baby chick and we tried adding it to her clutch, she immediately pecked at it and chased it away. She wanted nothing to do with it. Yesterday one hatched and we put it with her clutch. She looked at it every which way, studied it and then decided it was a turkey and accepted it. Last night, 8 more turkeys hatched. After they were all dried I tucked them in under her wings one by one and she accepted all of them. That is 13 baby turkeys under one Jenny.
Here is a picture of her looking at one of the youngest ones just before she pushed it under her wing. The ones not in the picture are under her wings.

Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: herbhome on April 20, 2019, 12:08:23 am
That is really cool.   :smile: What breed is she?

A few years back a friend incubated a clutch of wild turkeys and let us have a couple. They grew to enormous size on full feed. I killed a 30lb tom about 25 years ago and I thought it was as big as they get but the tom we got from him had to be about fifty when full grown.
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: BeeMaster2 on April 20, 2019, 07:35:05 am
Standard Bronze.
Our Tom is pushing 50 pounds.
Jim
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: CoolBees on April 20, 2019, 12:17:44 pm
That's awesome Jim. I've often contemplated raising some turkeys. But, if I remember from my youth and the neighbors who raised them sometimes, they eat way more than they are worth. ... kinda like teenage sons ... hahaha!

Anyways, jokes aside - how is the feed bill with them?

And how hard is it to get them to set on eggs? ... if you don't mind sharing ...

Cheers!
Alan
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: jtcmedic on April 20, 2019, 03:35:25 pm
We do chicken wanted to do a couple turkeys , but rabbits are next on the list
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: BeeMaster2 on April 20, 2019, 09:37:15 pm
Alan,
Ours don?t eat a lot. The Tom  eats more than the hens.
So far it seems that they have to have a lot of eggs to begin sitting. Our older hen had almost 20 eggs before she started sitting on them. The younger one kept laying eggs all ove the cage, we kept putting then in a nest, when we got 10 of them in the nest she started laying eggs around the nest box. Today she laid her egg in with the other eggs. I suspect pretty soon she will start sitting on the nest.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: Ben Framed on May 06, 2019, 02:55:35 am
Alan,
Ours don?t eat a lot. The Tom  eats more than the hens.
So far it seems that they have to have a lot of eggs to begin sitting. Our older hen had almost 20 eggs before she started sitting on them. The younger one kept laying eggs all ove the cage, we kept putting then in a nest, when we got 10 of them in the nest she started laying eggs around the nest box. Today she laid her egg in with the other eggs. I suspect pretty soon she will start sitting on the nest.
Jim Altmiller

Jim do tame turkeys lay the year round?
Title: Re: A rafter of turkeys
Post by: BeeMaster2 on May 06, 2019, 08:23:49 pm
No, they only lay eggs in the spring. One stopped when she started sitting on 22 eggs, the other one has laid about 32 eggs and still laying. We took the first 10 and put them in the incubator. We left the rest hoping she will start brooding. She has 22 eggs, last check.
Jim Altmiller