Showing posts with label Turkeys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkeys. Show all posts

Saturday, 6 June 2009

Decision Made - Eggs Set

Thanks for the comments as to which course of action I should take re. my turkey eggs. Especially thanks to Donnie for suggesting I get some call ducks! For a few years we had Indian runners - and they used to (run, that is!), and now we have Aylesburys which are slower but noisier.
Back to the subject in hand - when I was out feeding the hens this morning there was a light sussex in the guinea fowl nestbox and it occurred to me that she had not been in the main henhouse for quite a number of mornings. She raised three chicks last year very successfully and at the time we wished we had had some turkey eggs to put under her as she is quite wide and feathery. Also she is relatively even tempered even when broody. So she is now sitting on three bourbon reds and three norfolk blacks. The buff orp is too much of a ladette to be brooding anything except maybe a bacardi breezer, so we discounted her. So it is the bantam who has the other six. We will keep an eye on them to check that they are sitting ok as we seem to have so many cluckies at the moment that we can afford to shuffle them round till we find the right match.
So, taking tomorrow as day 1, hatch date should be 4th July. (Could this be a film title - "Hatched on the 4th July???)
Am now going to shut up about it for the next 28 days - a watched pot never boils, and a watched egg never hatches. If we get a 30% hatch from the eggs, I will not be disatisfied since they do deteriorate as they come through the post. But hopefully we will get something....

Friday, 5 June 2009

In a Quandary!

OK - so today the turkey eggs arrived from e-bay. All looking fresh and in good condition. Six bourbon reds and six black norfolk. But now I have to decide.....

a) do I put half the eggs under the growly buff orpington in the byre who has been sitting for a number of days on nothing and is certainly big enough to brood six turkey eggs but has an alarming habit of suddenly forgetting what she's supposed to be doing and abandoning her nest in favour of a riotous party with friends; or

b) do I put half the eggs under the dour little bantam who is sitting with her back to the world resolutely sitting, again on nothing, but who is loathe to leave her post even for a call of nature. She might be a bit small for six big eggs, and she also is lacking in a sense of humour - I remember how hatching those guinea fowl eggs last year went down - she couldn't see the funny side of that, so how will she be with turkeys? or

c) do I put six under each broody and let them get on with it, risking all the eggs if the party spirit gets too much for the buff orp to handle, and the little bantam looses her footing and plummets off her clutch; or

d) do I put them all in the incubator and risk a power cut - which is what happened in 2006 and it gave us many sleepless nights- both waiting for the eggs to hatch (which fortunately most of them did) and also with ten turkeys in a cage in the sitting room screaming their heads off and needing attention all the time; or

e) do I put three under each broody, six in the incubator and hope for the best - working on the basis that if the incubator ones hatch out I can add them to any family that the others might have hatched themselves.

Oh dear, its not an easy decision, but one which will have to be made tomorrow....