It's also interesting that your eggs are not hatching at the same time. Does each hen have it's own nest, or are they sharing. If they are sharing, then some hens may be laying in the nest while another is incubating. Then when the earliest eggs hatch, the hen leaves the nest and abandons the...
Hate to be the voice of negativity, but since you asked, you probably should not have picked it up. First, I'm pretty sure it's against the law to take a wild turkey home, and second, there is a pretty good chance that the hen mother was not too far away. After all, if it was as young as you...
I really like red bronzes which are simply the cross between standard bronze and bourbon red. Another really attractive bird with a name I can never remember is black crossed with bourbon red. These birds can't be shown as standard breeds at the fair, but if you want pets, you can do whatever...
Blacks, slates, and chocolates all have the basic black pattern that your poult seems to have. The difference is the color of the dark parts, which are almost black in blacks, brown in chocolates, and blue in blue slates (how's that for scientific). Looks like it might be a chocolate?
Wild turkeys are basically undomesticated standard bronzes. Bourbon reds are st bronze with two red genes. This cross will produce red bronzes.
Blue slates are black based with a single dominant blue gene. All offspring will appear black based, and half will get the blue gene, so half will...
Here is why your bronze cross blacks all look black.
There are three base colors in turkeys. Black, bronze, and black-winged bronze, written as B, b, and b1. The black base, B, is dominant. The bronze base is recessive to black, and black-winged bronze is recessive to both. Genes come in...
If your tom is still interested in mating after the poults hatch, he can be a problem. He can get to close to the hen and step on the poults.Most of the time this is not a problem but I have had to separate toms that were too aggressive towards females after hatching.
You really need to get a picture from the front. The snood could have been bitten off by another turkey or cut off trying to push through a fence. The caruncles appear hen-like, but that can be a function of age. Probably your best clue will be if the breast feathers have light edges or dark...
They ship fine. You just want to make sure that they are less than about two weeks old. Last year I ordered 15 eggs from a private source, and did not specify the two week limit. She wrote the date on all the eggs. I hatched 7 of 8 less than two weeks old, but only 1of 7 older. They were...
If they were living together when the poults hatched, you would have no problems, and if you had a ledger pen, say 50 x50, you would have no problem. I don't think you will have any problems, but my pens are all very large. When I do move birds, they go into a pen that is about 100 x 120 and...
Quick answers:
Six weeks, as large as possible, use a feeder tray with a lid and holes to peck out the food, keep the lid on, make sure the food is high protein (26-30% for at least the first six weeks. Nothing under 20% for the first several months, longer if they are heritage (I can't tell...
The temperature is the thing that came to my mind right away. Do you know how long they were on the road?
If the temperature is right, the birds should be loosely scattered around the brooder. They should be able to get close to the heat if they are cold, but be able to move away from it...
The best bet to get your hen to sit on them is if she is laying eggs. Wait till she has a nest with three or four in there and slip them in. If she's not laying eggs, she probably won't go broody. In fact, there's no reason for her to even look at the nest.
Chickens can do the job. I had a...