Letting tukerys sit?

Stt · **Joined:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:01 pm **Posts:** 3006

Do you let your turkeys sit or do you take the eggs and incubate them your self?
And is anyones turkeys laying?

danniella · **Posted:** Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:17 am

we normally collect the eggs but had a slate hen lay her eggs were we couldnt get them and she hatched 8 poults yesterday

MariaCreeksPoultry · **Posted:** Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:36 pm

We normally let the hens sit but sometimes take the chicks away when they hatch. Out of 3 hens, one is a fabulous mother, one is a lousy mother who will trample chicks to death, lose them etc and the other is bearable. I think it is a matter of getting to know your hen's mothering skills.

oozcorpse · **Joined:** Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:15 am **Posts:** 2715

as MariaCreeksPoultry said = if you know the poults mothering ability the decision is yours to incubate or allow them to sit
just remember some poults go psycho and will 'sit' on a rock and will die of thirst and/or starvation waiting for that rock to hatch so there are times when it is best to allow them to hatch something - try to tally the turkeys with either geese or ducks if you can as they often [strangely] make very good mothers to large waterfowl - chook eggs are too thin shelled for a heavy poult and they normally get crushed under the weight - goose and duck eggs are thick shelled and survive the experience quite well
we have one psycho poult and we allow her to hatch the bulk of our goose eggs each year - she is a very good mother and will actually stand ankle deep in the water once her babies start swimming

only correction =
female turkeys are reffered to as poults their entire lives - hens are chooks
and male turkeys are reffered to as Toms once they are mature

oozcorpse · **Joined:** Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:15 am **Posts:** 2715

danniella wrote:

we normally collect the eggs but had a slate hen lay her eggs were we couldnt get them and she hatched 8 poults yesterday

congratulations on the additions to your family

and Stuart = my poults are just starting to mate so eggs should be abt 3 weeks max away

same for the geese actually - so good timing!!!!

Drew Smith · **Posted:** Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:45 pm

soozorps are you poults aggressive with chicks, aggressive with you that is :?:

Cheers Drew Smith

oozcorpse · **Joined:** Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:15 am **Posts:** 2715

No never had an RP White Black or Meat turkey poult that is nasty to any human and only one of my RP Toms [Thomas by name :roll:

] goes my youngest - but then she DID once whack him with a stick to make him get into the house compound faster :evil:

= NEVER EVER EVER hit a turkey they are like elephants = they NEVER EVER EVER forget - she gets a roasting from Thomas each time she goes outside - serves her right too!!! [she's 14 by the way - and WAS brought up never to hit any bird/animal or human]

Thomas comes and climbs onto my lap when I sit down outside to read the paper - puts his head over my shoulder - goes to sleep AND SNORES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he also follows me like a puppy so between him and Mr Sandwich I have an 'entourage' of turkeys every where I go on the property

take note though that ANY poult can decide to go 'feral' and be nasty - not just to humans but to their own poults and other turkeys - Bourbon Reds are well known for agression
we only have one B Red poult left now and she has already started attacking the other birds and has eyed me off the last few days = she will either go to a home where they dont care abt the behaviour or we will eat her

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