As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Unless people write of their experiences in the quantum, there can never be a universe of thought.
- Lame Cherry
The subject of this is eggs, or more specifically hatching eggs.
I have wanted turkeys as we had them since I was a child. Turkeys though are not all alike, as the Thanksgiving turkeys are too heavy to set on eggs and crush them and the young ones when hatching.
Yes my experience, and the gobblers are too large to breed.
I have two hens of course and no gobblers, but they do set, so in not knowing the weight problem, I took a gamble and ordered 6 eggs from a huckster online at ebay.
The result was without refunds that one egg arrived cracked, and I was told to get a refund from the post office.........they did not cover eggs. Which leads me to believe that this robber was selling eggs that were worthless and expecting the post office to cover for his crimes.
My incubator was having problems so I set the remaining 5 under June as I felt so sorry for her. The end result there was 1 egg began to hatch and the rest were rotten.
My dad had brought home chicken eggs previously and we have hatched numbers of eggs before and did quite well, so the problem was not us.
Being not overly intelligent I actually found some heirloom turkey eggs in California. The people were very nice, compared to the crook, and sent me the eggs without paying for them, which I did.
They arrived all intact and that I will mention something about.
Understand that when poultry lay eggs, they deplete calcium from their bodies and need oyster shells to regain that calcium or the eggs break easily......yes the criminal was not allowing his poultry to set, and not feeding them a proper ration, so the eggs were fragile and of course where calcium is depleted, other essential elements are, so the embryo is not going to be strong enough to withstand shipping.
Now we come to the eggs, which were old, but that should not make that large of difference either.
So I set three under Thanksgiving and fortunately found a famer with a commercial hatcher who would set them and as of July 4th, I phoned up and he said he had 4 little ones, but had not checked that morning.
He said he would put them into a brooder, dry them off and get them going, and I could pick them up in a few days. Yes rural people tend to be extremely generous for a few dollars invested.
As I type this, I do not know the entire hatch rate, but in numbers of hatcheries a bit over 50% is about what they hatch out, so I actually am doing on par with what the rate should be.
The point is, turkeys are fragile as poults to order and expensive. The ones which will set are around 12 to 15 dollars a piece, plus 35 to 50 dollars next day shipping. It is very easy to rid yourself of 150 to 200 dollars for some very not healthy birds, as they do find numerous ways to die.
That makes a very expensive Thanksgiving and as I bought that white turkey Thanksgiving to eat....and that was 4 years ago, one can see that plan backfired in her becoming a pet.....and she is not the nice one.
She is though the one who........has decided to steal all the chicken eggs being laid in the nest next to her's and as of today her clutch is I think 7 eggs. Who am I to try and stop motherhood.
I was going to try setting some chicken eggs anyway under the turkey hens "just to see" as they refuse to stop being broody, and that would give them something to do......so Thanksgiving is just assisting.
I know if you could obtain eggs locally from someone who was not a tool of satan, it would be best. Shipping eggs, with good people, you are going to get around half hatch which is still cheaper, providing you do not buy from some Jack and the Beanstalk seller offering the turkeys eggs for the price of gold.
As for breeds, I love the Wishard Strain of turkeys which are the turkeys you think of. They will set and breed. We had those. I would not raise white turkeys as you might as well hang an EAT ME sign on them for predators.
The Spanish Black, Narragansette and Bourbon Red are good turkeys for self raising.
For wild turkeys, the Merriams are the best for staying around your homestead. The easterns like ending up miles away. We have an eastern hen that comes up into the yard to eat and drink. I think she is setting around here somewhere close.
I always run box traps far and near from my nesting birds to protect them. I have killed 3 coons far and have one eating my cat food which is going to find a near death experience when it gets into my trap there.
In the end, would I do this again? Probably never on ebay as that place is overflowing with the bottom feeders of sellers now. I would look around though online and see what you could find for turkeys or eggs, as the seller I found was what I expected in not being a problem.
It is just a reality that once you get a good brooding hen, you end up with too much of everything, and why things should be protected, because I have never seen such an abundance of absolute satanic hucksters around, but then these are these "hobby farm" creatures who like to pretend or are some large farm operation that has visions of becoming rich in selling shit for shinola.
Tomorrow though we get our baby turkeys home, which is the way to go, as they will think we are the hens and will stay around here.
June is an absolute pet in children can pet her and she just loves that.
Oh one more thing, I built my incubator and it does work, provided it is an inner room of stable temperature. That is very important. If I had the big donation, I would spring for a 700 dollar commercial incubator which basically once set up, will do everything, except stop turning the eggs the last few days to allow them to settle.
It is no long chicken feed prices as everything is speculation and gold now. We will see how these poults turn out in more pets in the porch.
Nuff Said
agtG
