Turkeys Update

24 March 2011

The dog came through the yard and killed some of my birds that were out of their pen. Lost 2 hens that I found the bodies to, and 2 of my Toms are just missing. Stripes, my prize Tom we raised, and my Bourbon Red. The Chocolate slate Tom got torn up pretty good, but hoping he’ll make it.

27 March

Got 3 turkey eggs and 11 chicken eggs.

28 Mar

Only got 1 turkey egg and 10 chicken eggs. Worked from 9am to 5pm, so I wasn’t here all day. Seems when I check eggs more often I get more.

29 Mar

Got 2 turkey eggs and 12 chicken eggs.

30 Mar

Got 2 turkey eggs and 9 chicken eggs.

Been averaging about 3 turkey eggs and 10-11 chicken eggs each day. The injured tom died today. Found him out in the pen. Not sure what happened, but I was prepared to put him down today any way. Drove to Seymour, almost a hundred miles round trip and bought 2 new toms. One is a Bourbon Red and looks good. The other one he had listed as a Blue Slate, but is really a chocolate slate. I know because I have a couple of them myself. This old man had them in a pen with a bunch of Guineas. Was kind of nasty, but I need a new tom. It was that or give up the rest of the season and wait for this year’s birds to mature for next year. And I think I still have a significant amount of the year left. The hens hadn’t even started laying this time last year. So I paid $25 each for them, about what I had been charging for my birds. And if I can sell the poults for $7 each, shouldn’t take long to recover that cost.

So I brought them home and put them in a pen I had built last year for the chicks. Put an anti-biotic in their water. Would like to wait a couple of days before I let them in with the other birds. Actually, tomorrow I am hoping to finish the pen I planned for the turkeys. I have all the materials and the lumber is cut and about half of it is put together. I found my other drill with the keyless chuck so I can change bits and got the roll of wire today. Cost me $103 for a 150 foot roll of 1 inch wire that is 60 inches high. Figure it will take about 142 feet for the pen and it comes in 150 foot rolls.

I was looking on-line and found a great design for my garden and chicken yard. Basically it has the coop in the middle with a yard on each side. You put the chickens on one side and the garden on the other side. Then each year you alternate and swap them. This is supposed to help control bugs in the garden and the chicken poop helps fertilize the garden. So I have to figure out exactly how I want to build it and where it will be. Also have to put the orchard somewhere. And speaking of orchard, ordered some trees from Gurneys and they came in the mail the other day. It has been too cold outside and I’m not sure where I want them anyway, so I planted them in pots and added them to the other plants in the living room. Figure that in a worst case scenario they can stay in the pots for the whole year. The ground isn’t very good for trees, especially ones that are less tolerant of wet soil in the spring. And there are several trees that need to be cut down to make room for the orchard and garden/chicken runs. Keep hoping that the weather will warm up and I can get outside and do a bunch of things I have been putting off.

I have a lot of my garden started in the living room. Drew got some shelves from work and I’ve concerted them to growing shelves. Have cherry tomato and Roma tomato plants, some cilantro, a lot of basil and other herb plants. My pomegranate plants are doing good under the lights. Cut them back and they have put on a lot of new growth. I have a Jalapeno plant that is about 3 years old. Each fall I’ve dug it up and put it in a bucket and over wintered it in the house, then plant it back outside. Got several peppers off it this winter, too. And it does better when it gets more light too.

Oh, and I also have a couple of grape plants that I bought earlier and they are growing in containers. Figure it will help them get a good start and then I can spend time this summer to find the right place and prepare the ground instead of just hurrying and stuffing them in the ground somewhere. One of the things I want to do this summer is prepare a bed for strawberries. I’ll get a bunch of runners from the few plants I have and if I can nurture them I may even get more than a handful of berries this year. My black berries should do really well also. I need to get a new pair of leather gloves and clean out all the old vines from them and from the black raspberries out in the woods. Not sure what to do with all the berries. Think I am going to try my hand at making jams and jellies. Something that I always want to use and it will make good use of them.

I have a book that I have been trying to write things down in, and then I realized that I should be putting this stuff on my blog. So I am going to try to get it on there on a regular basis, even if it means that I have to duplicate things in the book and the web. I also promise to try to get a few pictures of things on here. It’s just that sometimes it feels like there isn’t enough time to get things done.

Like last week, we were working to get the incubators out of the closet and set them up on a stand. We are trying to go thru things and get rid of some of it. It is almost like we have two households that have come together and we need to get rid of duplicates and other things that we’ve just been holding onto and will never use. And some of what I have is for my kids so I am trying to figure out what they want so it doesn’t get thrown away. Simplify my life is one thing you could say.

Anyway, we had moved things out of the closet, and then the dog came and attacked the birds and my schedule got messed up. Didn’t turn the eggs that day and when I did turn them, they were cold. Somehow the power cord had the switch turned off and so all the incubators were turned off. I’m sure the 2 goose eggs are dead. Not sure they even developed, need to crack them open tonight. Then there is an incubator with about 15 turkey eggs that should hatch April 11^th. Not sure if they survived. The incubators could have been off from 12-24 hours, and the eggs were room temperature, cold. So not sure how that will affect them. They had been in the incubator for 10 days, and not sure if it will just kill them or delay them a day or so or cause some other form of defect.

And the other thing is that is takes so long to write this. Seems I have so much to say. Maybe if I did it more often I would have less to say each time. Yeah, right!