In my Good Morning Mondays post last week I mentioned that we were going to a turkey farm to look at the processing of turkeys, we also discussed the politics and paperwork involved with the whole process. If you want to look at where we went you can click here.
We have been talking about getting some turkeys from this same place one day when we went there, so we took the opportunity and bought home three of them.
Here is the Sweetgrass Gobbler.
Here is the three of them together.
We got a Sweetgrass gobbler and hen and a Pencilled Slate hen. The Pencilled Slate hen is the one on the right of the picture and a plain grey colour.
These are heritage breed turkeys and they are lovely looking birds. I can’t remember how old they were but the owner said they should start laying in August.
They wouldn’t sit still for me to take a picture but I finally managed to get all three of them together.
We have put them in the chook (chicken) house with the chooks and they seem to have settled in well. We kept them locked up for 4 days and have let them out now and they are wandering around the back yard with the chooks. They go back in each night and have settled in really well.
We were concerned about how the roosters would be with them, but they are bigger than the roosters and chickens so they have left them alone.
We couldn’t believe how big the turkeys were that this farm had. The commercial breeds were enormous and it was fascinating to watch the two workers butcher, pluck and gut them.
We learned a lot that day and it was even better to spend 4 hours in the car together discussing all the things we can do around the farm.
Do you keep turkeys, if so what type and how many???
Blessings
Wow, these birds are incredible-looking! I’ve never heard of the Sweetgrass breed.
I don’t know much at all about Turkeys, but I am sure going to learn. Thanks Kira for stopping by and commenting. Blessings
They are so pretty! Going to try to download a picture of a wild turkey that’s come to live with us and send it to you sometime this week. They are so pretty! Are they friendly?
Our top rooster will take on coyote, skunks, raccoons, cats, and mink. But he is no competition for that turkey. It’s good that he’s calm. They tried with him one time but I’m pretty sure they’ll never do that again.
Love this post.
Blessings,
They are pretty birds and they are sort of friendly. They come up to the back yard and peck around there but I don’t think I could catch one by just walking up to it. They aren’t attacking us or anything, they leave that to a rooster that is on its last warning :-). You have heaps of wild animals, are biggest issue with our chickens is foxes and my son is a top fox hunter and has a pack of dogs that he takes with him and they go down dens and everything. Our cats only catch mice so far. We don’t have skunks or raccoons or minks. Will have to look up what a mink is,I’ve only heard of mink coats. It is so fascinating to hear about your life and what you have over there, it is so great to learn. Can’t wait for the picture. Blessings
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Sure thing Marie, Blessings.
We have raised turkeys in the past and love how fresh turkey tastes!
This sounds great,my husband isn’t that keen on turkey so it will be interesting to see if he like the flavour of our own. Thanks for your comment Tracy. Blessings
I have 6 Royal Palms at the moment. I LOVE having turkeys. They are so gentle , like big nosy dogs that follow me around. They are occasionally aggressive with each other or the chickens but not too bad. They eat a LOT of feed though. Enjoy them!
Oh they sound lovely Deana, they do sort of smooch around the place, and are quite interesting to watch, will have to look up your breeds to see what they look like. Thanks for stopping by . Blessings
Beautiful turkeys! Thanks for sharing their pics on The HomeAcre Hop 🙂
I have 2 Narragansett hens and a black Tom…not sure of his breed. He came in one of those hatchery surprise deals that some friends ordered last spring. I’m hoping to have plenty of eggs to hatch and hopefully lots of turkeys to butcher this fall.
Last year I started with a breeding trio of Narragansett turkeys, but both hens met their demise and I butchered the male. I did, however, get 6 healthy youngsters before that and the 2 hens I have now were saved from that bunch to breed this year.
Keeping turkeys and chickens together can sometimes lead to a disease called blackhead in your turkeys. It is caused by a protazoa in the gut of earthworms and can be carried by chickens and then transferred to the turkeys. To prevent problems, treat your whole flock with acidified copper sulfate according to the directions every couple of months. You can order it from several poultry supply websites. Best wishes!
Hi Lisa, it sounds like you have had an interesting turkey journey. We have been warned about blackhead and I have been told you can use Cayenne pepper in their feed, so we are going to try that and see what happens. Will do some more research on breeds and blackhead so that we can be informed. Thanks for taking the time to comment and for your very useful information. Blessings
What a great post! I do not keep turkeys although one year I found a tiny poult on the road and couldn’t find mama so I brought him home. He lived here for a few months, then my friends daughter asked if she could take him. Since I had been teaching her chicken care and had given her a few chickens to raise (and she was doing a great job with them!) I let her have Turk the wild turkey. He lived there about a year till the ‘call of the wild’ had him following a group of wild turkeys into the woods one day.
Thanks for linking up with Green Thumb Thursday last week! I hope you’ll join us again this week!
~Lisa M
Thanks for your comment Lisa and what a great story, Turk the turkey took to the woods. What a great experience for your young friend. Thanks for hosting too and blessings to you this week.