[Quote carried over from the Silkie thread]

Skiekitty said: Maybe I'll get a young turkey too & raise it for dinner...

Three of last year's flock of five....one for each of the *eat all ya can* holidays, and one for the couple who, uhm....packaged them.

The two I kept will hopefully be parents one day....and I've grown rather fond of them.

I dunno if I could do it. Raise 'em for food. Well, me, personally, no problem. One man's pet is another man's dinner. I couldn't eat a cat or a dog, but I definitely can (and have) eaten other "pets" (chickens / rabbits / pigs, and unfortunately we *tried* to eat a goat, but it was SOOOOOOOO nasty.. my mom got suckered into buying a "baby" goat... no way in hell was that old billy goat a baby! Thing was probably 5-7 years old and *had* been a pet before.. nasty nasty nasty tasting). But DH.. I am almost 100% sure he couldn't do it. Hmm.. maybe I'll get some bunnies too.. I *love* bunny meat! Long horrible story there ..

I've never tried goat, and had rabbit only once when I was young. The couple who dresses out our birds raise rabbits and have told us we could have some if we wish. I kind of prefer them all soft and fuzzy though, I think.

This is too funny!!!! Here we just talked about turkey eggs today - and guess what?!!! My hen laid her first egg this afternoon! Sometime between the the time I went out to get the photos, and the time I went back out to put them up for the night! Coincidental?? Oh, and she's not in the mood to cover it. Go figure.

Ahem.....so, the egg is now resting under a Silkie hen.....I know it's much too early for chicks, but it does seem to fit. It's only about twice as big as a Silkie egg. I'll see tomorrow if I got it under the right hen. One of ours will go broody at the drop of a hat....the others, not so much.

What kind of turkeys are they?

They look to be Bronze, or Broad Breasted Bronze.

We had some all-white turkeys one year, but I very much prefer the Bronze. Although they're a bit smaller, they don't seem to be aggressive at all.

We process our extra goat bucks. Never over 2 years old. Will those turkey toms get the job done? Word is,some turkeys are too broad breasted to reach.

All I've seen so far is display behavior, so I'm not sure if he's getting the job done yet, or not. These were naturally hatched birds; however, so I'm hopeful.

Do they have AI professionals for turkeys?

PPal - I remember watching a "Dirty Jobs" in regards to AI for turkeys because the males couldn't service the females due to extreme size. http://www.tv.com/shows/dirty-...

Okay...

the only turkey story I have is a comedy of errors and bad timing.
When we started farming, we had our trailer up behind Stan's folks. The second year, someone dropped off a bird dog, exact breed unknown. She had recently had a litter of pups, and was just thrown out on the side of the road when they didn't need her anymore. I fed her and we talked about bringing her over to our farm. In the meantime, Stan's dad bought a bunch of poults and suddenly our poor sad drop off was in heaven. She pointed at them, chased them, she caught them, carried them around. Unfortunately, turkey poults weren't really made to be dog toys and they started dropping dead from all the fun. Our found dog came to a swift end. The rest of the turkey survived and Thanksgiving and Christmas were saved for mandatory gluttony.

We adopted a bird dog a couple of years ago. Our birds are kept in an aviary for safety's sake and let out only occasionally, but I still thought that it would be a good idea to explain to Grizz that the turkeys weren't to be chased. Eventually we came to an understanding; he let me know that he wouldn't chase the birds....at least as long as I was nearby!

I need to add another turkey egg to each of the three Silkie nest boxes. I went out to put them up last evening, and three hens were snuggled in one 12"x 12" box; the one with the egg!

OMG.. that's hilarious! Pix please!!!

Maybe it takes three Silkies to incubate one turkey egg.

porkpal said:Maybe it takes three Silkies to incubate one turkey egg.

.....or that all of them want to be "momma".

It's wet here, but I'll try to carry a pocket camera with me when I go out..... NOT that you're likely to see a glimpse of the egg, however. It always seems to be hidden by a pile of hens.

The female turkey is still using the roost, even though I've left one egg in her nest to try to get her interested in covering it.

Chelle - One thing I used to do when I was breeding canaries was to give bad mommas "dummy eggs". They're little plastic eggs that the momma could ignore or brood. If a hen never got broody, there was food additives I could give them that would encourage brooding (hemp seed primarily). I have no idea on chickens/turkeys, though. I suppose that you could use an old L'eggs Egg for a turkey if you could find one.. or a plastic easter egg to start 'em out. That way she's not ruining viable eggs. But a pile of silkies trying to sit on a single turkey egg would be hilarious. Are they able to keep the egg warm enough? I don't know the temp requirements of chickens vs turkeys..

I read that the biggest difference is in humidity levels. Turkey eggs require more than chicken eggs do. Gestation period is 28 days; however, the usual hatching season is April-May.....and we don't even know if these eggs are viable yet. They might just be practice eggs.

Candle them. Just don't use your hands. I know (with canaries!!) that viable eggs are visibly viable after the first 3 days, so with a 4 week gestation I'd wait at least a week or two weeks to start seeing the spiderwebs. I used a single LED flashlight w/a flexible neck for the canary eggs.. I would use one of those 9-LED flashlights to penetrate through the thicker shell of a turkey egg. This could be exciting!!

I actually have considered doing that. I can't do it with the egg down in the nest box though, can I? Should I pick up the egg(s) in a clean cloth?

Use a serving or cooking spoon. Or wear gloves. I suppose that turkey eggs aren't as fragile as canary eggs, as it's the oils on the fingers that can suffocate a developing chick. But, to be safe, I'd get an old slotted spoon from the cooking drawer or some old cotton gloves (dirt covered personally would be better as there would be less chance of oils transferring). Definitely not latex or nitril gloves. Or see if you can just scootch the silkie over for a few minutes. This forum here has a couple of day-by-day diaries of when I was breeding canaries & I'll see tonight if I can find pix of viable eggs. http://cubits.org/pets/forums/... Just look for the ones by me (I'm Skiekitty there too.. no originality!)