Let's Talk Turkey

So, I realized I never updated the turkey count after the last bold, and ultimately incorrect declaration of, "The turkeys seem to have finally stopped dying." We were at nine then? Wow. I was wrong about six times over.

After one drowned himself in a bucket, two were apparently pecked to death by their bored coop mates and three managed to escape the coop and never be seen again, we were down to just three. THREE FREAKING BIRDS out of 16. Suddenly the price per bird moved from an already troubling $7 to a hefty, unsustainable $37 per poult. Did I mention that was $37 per roughly four ounce bird? So wrong.

Having proved themselves relatively indestructible, I named the remaining three birds Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego and set them free to forage the farm. I am happy to report that the three little guys are still alive and well.

Turkey Lan (the original wedding turkey) and his once gimpy friend, Turkey Lean are also doing well. And growing nicely. And it seems - and I am about as sure as I get on the whole turkey-sexing thing - that we actually do have a matched pair. Turkey Lan looks properly dude-like and turkey lean has NO wattle or snood to speak of.

No idea on genders for the Black Spanish birds yet - they have not started to develop their sex characteristics. They are deliciously ugly little dinosaurs still. Here are a few recent photos. The first is Turkey Lan trying to get in on some tasty goat dinner.



And here are a couple of the Black Spanish out on the prowl for delicious bugs.

Wish us luck. If we have mixed sexes, we will let them breed and try to recapture some of our lost turkey dollars.

A few photo updates

So -- they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Since my last post looks like at least 1000 words (sorry!), I'll stick to photos this time. Here are a few updates.

Peep is almost fully manned out now. So handsome.


Gravy is almost as big as wild pig already. So precocious.


Bravey is not as big is Gravy, and so is way smaller than big pig. So cute.



We got more piglets. (I know this deserves a proper explanation, but I don't have time at the mo. Take your fake thousand words and be happy.)


We are hoping to take the last of the guinea keets to their new home today. ...as soon as we catch the last two, anyway. I think we waited too long. These birds are too good at the flying now.


The turkeys seem to have finally stopped dying. We have nine left from the original 16 mail-order poults. Plus the two feed store birds, so 11 in the coop. Gobble gobble!



There. That's, like, 6200 words. Now I gotta go make cheese already!

I don't think we'll be doing this again...

Turkeys. Ugh.

We have lost five. These stupid things have become a ridiculous, expensive folly.

Now two I think I probably cooked. That was my own stupidity. The other three? I don't know. One died overnight. Christian found another while I was at market and I just picked up another one about five minutes ago. WTH??? Three of the five that have died are the Blue Slates - the ones I was most looking forward to raising. Sigh. Not doing this again. For real.

Here is how they looked yesterday evening. No gimps. I just don't know what is happening, but probably they are not all eating and drinking enough.

The ones that are still in there look good, but I am not counting my turkeys before the pop-up timer goes off.

Lest you think it is all Bhutan-Turkey Death March around here - we do have some new life. Molly the guest cow is here. I will post more on her soon - I need to take a few photos first.

Gobble gobble!

OMG - the poults are here. We had one DOA, but they throw in extra just in case that happens. 16 of the little turklings survived their fantastic journey.

...and they came with no label.

I have no idea what we got, but it looks like there are two breeds. ...anyone?



Edited at 1:15: It seems the dark ones are Black Spanish. The light ones may either be Blue Slate or Royal Palm. We'll see as they begin to feather out.

Oh...and we almost killed them all already. It seems that they CAN get too warm - and leaving their box in the Texas sun would be just how that would happen. They are now inside the coop. I hope they survive our stupidity.

Peep-mania!

Well! Debbie came home from her broody sabbatical with three little white peeps this morning. We never did figure out where her nest was, so there is no telling how many eggs she actually hatched and how many babies she may have lost on the way back to the barn from her nest site. At this point she is three times better than Dawn on her first go and she blew out Audrey, who hatched two and came back with none.

Here are two of them with proud mama.


While I was out there, I caught a quick updated photo of Mickie and Dawn's remaining peeps. There are still five and they all fly now. That will make it exponentially harder to round them up and re-home them. :( But I think it's time for them to go. We don't need so many guineas and we have already arranged a trade for a future turkey processing.


And speaking of turkeys... We lost two of the poults. :( One, um, kind of, well...walked into our dog's mouth. Ahem. And one went completely AWOL. We quickly re-settled the other two in the coop whereupon one started to look really gimpy. To say I panicked is an understatement. I mean - one needs to make it to Thanksgiving. It was a freakin' wedding present. I briefly considered sending a photo of a dead turkey with a note, "I am sorry, but your turkey died. Take this as a lesson. If you do not properly care for your marriage, it too will die." But that seemed bad even for me. So we ordered 15 more that will be mailed out next week. Just in case.

Yes. 15.

Why, you ask? Good question. It's crazy, huh? Well, it is really the minimum order. They can't mail you just one or two - they need to fill a box to provide warmth and cushioning. That's why we get them at the feed store. They order in bulk and we can pick up as many as we want.

So anyway, the feed store is done now. I had to get serious. On 7/29 the hatchery will put 15 day-old heritage breed turkeys in a box and send them our way. I elected the "Hatchery Choice" option, meaning they can send us any kind they have on hand. We may get 15 of one kind or we may get 3-4 each of four kinds. I have no idea. I only hope they will tell us what they sent.

Our plan is to get them past the critical do or die point (6 weeks or so) and then sell all but maybe five on craigslist. And we're building a mobile coop - or turkey tractor - to avoid any more losses to our bad house dog, Max.

Ugh. Have I ever mentioned that we are NOT a poultry farm? You wouldn't really know it these days.