Moult, Eggs and Garden

The Welsummers have headed into their first moult. One hen has already lost a lot of her wing and breast feathers.  The others are looking pretty fluffy (a lot of down feathers are being exposed). Time to take the oyster shell away and we will need to switch over to starter/developer feed for higher protein content.  Rhodies will not moult this year as this is their first year. This means that the Welsummers probably won't be back to laying until December or January.

The Freedom Rangers are doing well outside.  They are foraging (like heritage chicks) and seem comfortable outside. They don't seem too flightly with the sounds. We do have to round them up after dark as they are not inclined to want to go inside at night. That's good though, as that means that they are foraging well into the evening.  

The first few weeks of September have been excellent fall temps, high 60s and low 70s.  Greenhouse lettuce is growing well, the outdoor plants, cilantro, carrots and spinach are loving these temps. 

Picked up garlic starts today. I'm soaking them overnight and will get them in the dirt tomorrow.  I picked up some different organic fertilizer, Bio-Live.  I can work this into the dirt tonight for tomorrow's planting. Should be great for a lot of our under the soil growth, i.e. carrots, garlic, onion and potatoes. Time will tell.  

No Photos today.

Black Spanish Turkeys at Twenty Three (Weeks)

At five months, the turkeys appear to both be toms and so, they are Tom Luna and Tom Aries, and plumping up nicely. They love their cracked corn! Looking back at how tiny they were when we brought them home the first week.We certainly can't hold them in the palm of our hands anymore!

Aries Turkey Inferno

The poor turkeys were almost fricassee as a fire raged in the pasture. Thankfully, neighbors immediately came to help and shortly after that multiple fire trucks and fire fighters arrived on the scene. 

After the turkeys were released from their pen/coop, they flew to safety while a couple of fire trucks were navigated into the pasture and hoses were stretched across the road into the neighborhood up the street. This necessitated the police blocking the streets to protect the hoses! Santa Vaca!  

Thankfully, not too much was burned but the smell is intense.  The door on the pen is a little melted, but still, all in all, the coop and pen are intact and functional. The turkeys were a little traumatized, and rounding them up took some efforts. They had found the neighbor's apple tree and decided that was a perfect location to chill while those crazed men and women worked to put out that fire. 

What started the fire? Well, the week was an especially hot one, turning the pasture into prime tinder.  The electric fencing sparked the fire. We so totally appreciate our local fire fighters for saving our pasture and our home! Also, our kind neighbors were very helpful in the early minutes of fire. 

The turkey coop has been moved to a new location and the electric fencing has been taken down. Oy! What a nightmare this could have been!  On the positive side, it did burn up a good section of blackberries.

Bigger Turkeys Need more Space

The turkeys are about 15 weeks old now. They sure do grow quickly! 

This week, we worked on setting up an electric netting area for the turkeys.  They are leery of it, and, they can fly over if they choose, but have not in the past few days. There's plenty of grass, seeds and weeds for them to forage at this point. We need to get some better mid supports for the fencing. The stretches are about 13' so the sections can get pretty saggy without mid supports. Right now, we are using fiberglass supports to hold up the fencing. So, for now, the two turkeys have approximately 40'x40' protected grazing area to keep dogs, cats and coyotes out. 

PVC Turkey Pen

Between the three of us, the pen is finally complete.  It is five feet wide and ten feet long. The only wood is the base of pressure treated 2X4s. The archs are ten foot 1/2 inch PVC with 1/2 inch mesh hardware cloth.  We attempted to replicate the arch for the end as a door, but it did not work well. So we filled in a section in order to attach a vertical post and attach a rectangle door over the end. We used a lot of zipties to attach the wire to the PVC while stapling the wired on the outside of the wood frame.

In an effort to reduce sway, you may see a few "right angles" of PVC attached to the center next to the arch. One of the right angles is also where we have hung their rain-proof feeder for easier access to feed them.

These two are great foragers and within an hour of putting the pen into place, they had the vegetation mowed down!

The shiny "cover" over the pen is just a clear table cloth for those rainy days our area is renowned for. The pen is considerably lighter than our eight foot by four foot pens built out of 2X3s!

If we ever decide to combine our two chicken flocks, the coop and pen together are big enough for all our chickens. Or, we can just keep it set aside for raising a couple of turkeys each summer.

Fun with Luna and Aries

So, now that the couple are in the coop, I tried to snap a few updates through the wire.  The mesh causes some weird blur at times, but we'll work with it. Plus, I don't have the setting on the fastest speed because I'm in the shade with the coop. Here we go at Seven Weeks of Age.

Luna	Aries
Luna near Aries far	Aries Reaching the bar
Luna in a Preen	Luna looking through the glass door
Aries New seven-week Feathers coming in

Seven Weeks Black Spanish Turkeys Are Outside! New Coop Design

It is hot hot today, but thankfully, the new coop allows for great air flow! The Coop is finally done.  It is not tooo heavy, but I think it will be solid enough for Aries and Luna. I will still need to paint it.  It's only a primer right now. But you can see that the Poults are over a foot tall now and growing rapidly.  They are just starting to get feathers developing on the backs of their necks. A canvas tarp will protect them in the evenings and on rainy days.  I will need to start on their run now. It will be similar in style, but setting on the ground to allow them to forage safely. Heritage turkeys are supposed to be great foragers.  As they get older/bigger, we will let them out of the pen and forage in the field.

The Start - a base on sleds	The front with sliding plexi-glass door
Luna Checking the new Coop Digs	Aries standing under Roosting Bar
Still using small feeder/water until they get larger	Back wall with Clean out door
The door panel is secured to Wood on front wall	Canvas Tarp will be secured with bungie cords
Roost is a 2" x 3" bar attached to Front and Back Panels

Heritage Turkeys at five weeks old

The turkey babies are growing growing growing! The pen that I had them in was just too small after a couple of weeks and, well, it is too cold outside still for them. I had originally hoped to have their coop done to keep them in the coop in the garage until they are old enough to go outside.  Well, that's not done yet.  It is only a floor of a coop, right now. They don't have enough feathers yet and are still babies, in a sense. I have an outdoor bunny pen that is about 3.5ft sections, so I put half of it together to create a decent enclosure for them out in the garage.  I have lots of old sheets so that's turned the pen into a turkey fort to keep out the drafts. I put grass hay on the floor for them (on a sheet to keep it contained).  I also put the brooder warmer in the pen/fort.  The warmer was too small/short for them at this point, but I have placed it up on blocks to give them room to get under it, if they want to just in case it gets too chilled in the garage. In the first photo, the roost is about a foot off the ground, and they have to duck their little heads to walk under it, so you can see just how much they have grown in the pictures. This at least should hold them for a few more weeks for the weather to warm up in June. 

Black Feathered Friends One Week In.

The turkeys are growing fast! If we truly have a pair, we think the one with the black dots near the ear region is the Tom. That one is more assertive and interactive. We are calling that one Aries. The other one, we are fairly certain is a Hen and we are calling her Luna. Their wing feathers are filling in on both and they are almost twice as tall as a week ago. I put a stick in the cage for them to start roosting on. They are not quite as peepy as chicken pullets, but definitely peep loudly when scared (in the dark). We're adjusting to each other. They seem healthy.  I don't see any lethargy or strange behaviors. That's about it for the week.

Day Two Turkey

So these pix are a little better, but still, either I move or the turkey moves and, well, blur is inevitable. I created a little mound of shavings and paper flakes to make the brooder-warmer more inviting and, well, warmer for the Black Spanish Turkey babies. While it is difficult to "sex" turkey babies, we think one is a tom based on mannerisms and size.  But time will tell.