When I went out this morning to feed and let the silkies out, I noticed that Mom Turkey was up by the house alone. I asked her where her babies were and she started to call for them. Nobody came. I asked her again and started to approach her and she walked over to the fence line and stood with her head down. I went there and found every baby dead.They were all with in a 6 foot area along the fence. The only mark I could find on any of them was one drop of blood. SOme were squished pretty flat. I can only think of two things that could have done it. Tom Tom (their father) or the peacock. I have never known the peacock to harm any baby, even the tiny bug like banties, but Tom Tom has tried to stomp my Bronze chicks.
Any ideas?
I'm hoping she will nest again, but their days are numbered here. If she nests again we will keep Tom Tom untill she starts setting. If she doesn't, they both will go soon. Hopefully someone will want a pair of Narries.
Now, I am trying to decide if I should order some meat chickens and a few more turkeys. The meat to cost ratio with the bronzes is excellent and we process them in pieces. I paid 8 bucks at the store for a lousy chicken this week and am thinking that maybe we should put out some cornish cross again. I figure that I can grow them for a total cost of $5 to $6 each and get a bigger better chicken. (last time I packaged them in 1/2 chicken packs for the two of us)
It's a sucky day around here and I'm looking for ideas.
Narraganset lost her chicks last night
I am so sorry about your babies! I would suspect Tom Tom......
Sorry. Thats so sad, I will certainly be careful with any Toms around any chicks here. I am going with meat chickens this year. I am not sure of the cost to meat ratio, we had very large broadbreasted whites that free ranged during the day that provided us with lots of meat. We are doing them again this year. We are keeping 1/2 of them for ourselves. I am going to cut them up in smaller portions for our meals.
Good luck with your hen, I hope she sets again.
I was told that RIR adults were selling at $14. each at our local auction house.
MollyD
Sorry you lost your little chics.
Chickens are up in price. I think a nice duel purpose bird is the Gaint Blacks. Excellent layer and the grow fast. Roos are Large perfect for raiseing or frying. They will get a s big as a medium Turkey As for Tom Tom Id eat his but! Sorry to be bold but no baby killers are welcome here. Some are bad about it. I personally dont order from hatcheries anymore because I am more into exhibition birds. The cost are high. Grown birds are around $15.00 for grown birds not bad at all when you consider buying a nice exhibition strain. I get 40.00 a dozen for eggs and finally had to stop taking orders for a while we couldnt lay them fast enough With riseing gas alot more people are going to return to raiseing their own egg layers and fryers. Its much healthier...
so sorry about the poults! next time maybe put some hardware cloth on the lower part of your garden fence to keep out predators and keep them in, and keep Tom in a crate! you can't get rid of him yet, or there will be no more babies!!!
I agree, yes, Jersey Giants are our second choice for dual purpose birds. [Buckeyes Rule!] We have hatched out quite a number of black ones, and also some crossed with Black Australorps for laying. We purchased some Excellent quality JG chicks from someone whose family has bred them for 130 years! They were quite a bit per chick, but will add nice bloodlines to our current stock, plus we got some splashes and blues for the kids to show. Really, any kind of dual purpose bird will requre less care and be a lot more enjoyable to raise, and more beneficial to your overall purposes.
Jumpin4Joy, by next year we will be in the harching egg shipping business as well. But at some point you need eggs to eat, when does it end?, or i should say when do you stop the breeding season and turn them loose to free range and lay?
tf
sorry to hear about your baby
hope you get more
elle
When it gets hot i stop hatching. The heat makes the work load heavier and I think the chicks are more secepitable to disease just because of mice, flys, Misquitos, and just getting overheated, me and them. I like to hatch in the cooler months, ship eggs in the spring and eat my own eggs in the summer. 90+ degrees in a box is just to hot in my opionion. Here is a picture of my Blue Orpingtons another great layer and meat Bird. They lay like crazy.
i know a fellow in WV who used to raise blue orps. nice coloring, and esp nice comb and wattels...
taht schedule sounds right to me. next year i will do better with my setup moved to the basement. we have very dry winters here, and heat the house with a woodstove, so Jan and Feb were bad ahtching months for me...
jyl, is Tom in a pot yet?
tf
So sorry to hear about your chicks, Jyl. How many chicks did you loose? Poor Momma too. I bet she'd like to do the cha-cha on old Tom herself. You could always sign Tom up for "Freezer Camp"!
....That's got my vote. :-[
I didn't realize that Buff Orpingtons came in different colors! Who sells those Blue ones? They're very pretty!
MollyD
I think the original Orpington was black. Some people think the Buff lay better. You hardly ever hear about the other colors in the USA.
I'd love to try some of the others. Maybe those are the sweet natured ones LOL
MollyD
ask maineiac...
Was that a good experience or a bad one? Should I just go for the Welsummers and maybe a Speckled Sussex or two?
MollyD
i was thinking he might be breeding orps, or know of a breeder in your are. you know, when he was doing all that research to find wyandotte breeders of different colors.... don't think he actually has any...
the problem is I don't want show quality birds. When I find local breeders that's what they're offering. I want a bird that will be dinner or produce eggs for us. That's why I've stuck to the hatcheries so far.
MollyD
well, the blue orps are pretty, but are orps really the best all purpose? i would want a smaller come in your weather...
seems there are a few small hatcheries up there.... sorry you weren't happy with Ideal. maybe they will all turn out fine... not end up in jail LOL
tf
Well the chicks were healthy but it's confusing when you order 3 breeds and they all look alike (and shouldn't!) and when you've got one unknown and the hatchery doesn't respond to questions. Things like that make you frustrated. If MM wasn't having that problem I'd try them.
MollyD
i know what you mean. rember my black australorps i coulnd't get an answer on?
how about healthy chicks hatchery? or is it mt. healthy?
Mt Healthy. They don't have the ones I'd like to add.
MollyD
I may have been too quick to judge Tom Tom. I cought my male duck trying to kill young and baby ducks today. Do you thin he may have done it. It was pretty hard yesterday. Mom Turkey just sat where her chicks died and called most of the day. Today she took a dust bath and is perking up. I moved her log cabin that she nested in over to where she was staying, let's hope she nests again.
Now I have the delima of the duck. I have seperated the male duck to the far back of the yard. His mate Mom Duck has a nest near the front of the yard. Now she doesn't want to sit it, she just sits out by the fence keeping Quackers in. If she doesn't start setting again by tomorrow, I'll just move her out there with him as I have more babies hatching from my rouen next week any way. Who knows? Maybe she will lay more.
I hust ordered 25 cornishX and 10 more broad brested turkeys. I wish I could have only ordered about 5 turkeys, but that was the minimum. With my luck all of these will make it and I'll have hundreds of pounds of turkey. Then it will really frost me if the Narrie makes a new nest.
Tom tom is being super gentle with me right now. I went out to apologise to him and he let me stroke his head and scratch his chest. Strange.....
glad you found the real culprit. what kind of duck is that?
Anyone here try ' Local Harvest.org"? They have chickens, ducks and all kinds of things you can buy local all over the nation. You can also sell local to others, I was looking for chics, but he didn't have any yet .
I talked with a person about 15 miles from me that sells chickens for meat, and potatos.Some of it is organic but not all .
I hope my peking ducks aren't killers.
u have! i need to get myself and a friend listed!
It seems agood place to buy and sell. I talked to two locals so far ,one wouldn't allow you to visit and see the chickens,she would only deliver, I didn't like that ,so I didn't call her back.But the guy welcomed us to his place .
www.LocalHarvest.org
This message was edited May 18, 2008 12:06 AM
I just went to the forum n the 'Local Harvest 'site.
I can better understand the reason for the lady not wanting me to visit her farm.
Seems people can bring in desease from shoes, vehicle tires ,etc..
Plus on another tread, I read about the GAP where they say small farms are being regulated out of business.
They have a 207 question application, even want you to keep log of your compost temp.
Yet they bring in foods from all over the world that is not even inspected . Like the fish farms where most of our seafood comes from now.
What do you think about this ?
gov't regs are why i'll never be called organic. they bought the term, and it worked as far as they are concerened, becasue ORganic industry is growing at an alarming rate. even though most companies are large, and many have to outsource ingredients from China and other overseas suppliers.
so i just want to be local. not big. not rich. just good local stuff. where people can say they know the first name of the person who grows their food...
Elliot Coleman has some excellent books on the subject...
there have been many local movements ont he east and west coast. even some places where people challenge themselves to not use anything that they can't get within a 100 miles...
compost temp is important, esp with organic composting.
tf
I am so sorry to hear about your baby poults. That
must have been heartbreaking for the mama, too.
I can just picture her mourning by the fence, poor girl.
I hope she can set another batch for you and her-
she deserves to.
I agree on the first name farmer basis. I looked into
organic, and I do not want to go there right now- not
even in a year, I don't think. The more my birds can
free range around here, where I don't use chemicals
but do use commercial medicated at this time, I still
know what I am getting is going to be better.
Be careful what you say in organic topics. A bill was passed that makes it impossible to condemn the large growers, I read it last night and edited some of my replys on equine feed . Soon saving seed wil be illegal.
Do you know the name of that Bill whatsupdoc ? I find it hard to believe that they could pass a bill that tampers with the Bill of Rights (Freedom of Speech you know). Something like that could be challenged in the Supreme Court and the challenger would win.
MollyD
Go to madcowboy.com and read the article.He and Oprah were sued by cattle people several years ago. Since then new laws have came out. I may mislead you so it's better for you to read it yourself.
I'm no big fan of Oprahs but this is serious consiquences that came from that lawsuit .
I found the web page but couldn't find the article with Oprah. Do you have link to the article itself?
thanks!
MollyD
I remember the lawsuit, took place in 1998 in Amarillo when i lived there, even saw the house Oprah rented...
but is this new legislation? perhaps something slipped in with the Farm Bill??? i realize a lot of stuff was in there that shouldn't have been, but they over-rode Bush's veto... well, won't get off on that subject, but since i am not Oprah, just a small town gal, i don't think that anyone can sue me for expressing my opinion.
and i dont' say that lightly, as i have been sued here lately...
tf
Sorry to hear about your poults. :-( After reading that it was your drake, I'm going to have to build another pen for him as I have 4 ducks nesting at the moment. Thanks for letting everyone know who did it.
All our farm animals are going to have to go
underground soon, too. There is also legislation
in the works that all, every single one of our farm
animals will have to be chipped. Why I do not know,
and I will go searching for any more info I can find-
I glazed over it while doing some other research.
Anyone know offhand where more on this might be?
Quackers is now banished to the front yard. (Oh BIG punishment! he has his own pond, three flower gardens to mess up and a birdfeeder!) He has access to his primary female though the wire of the fence and he says near her as she sits his nest. Everybody else is in the back yard and in the next two or three days will have ANNOTHER duck's eggs hatching. (I'm ending p with a lot of ducks this year). One of the banties who hatchedout duck eggs earlier just started a new nest with bantie eggs and the turkeys have been breeding all day. So it looks like we may be overrun withduckis and turkeys by July.
My husband wated me to order more turkeys with some cornish crosses an the minimum order was 10. So add them with the 5 we already have coming out of the brooder......I think I'm goig to move.
Truest, they will only have to be chipped if they leave your property for any reason other than the local fair. It still sucks, but I think I'll be able to get aound it. One more thing to thank big agrabusiness for.
Okay then that's ridiculous. What's next, we have to
have a chip in a dead meat bird going to our neighbor's?
All of our shipped eggs have to have a chip glued on
them? If I choose to get a couple birds from Joe in
another state, I then have to import a chip along with
them? I don't want one single chip on my property.