Broody turkey hen with chicken eggs! Sheesh! ***new ???? p 9***

[freemotion]

For some reason I can only count 29 eggs in the picture, and there were definitely thirty. I counted several times. Must be the angle.

You can see that one egg is off to the side. That is because I have two hens who sneak in with her and lay eggs and she ultimately scoops them into the pile. One hen tried to stay with her and brood with her. I pulled her out of there and put her in the coop on a roost to cool her jets overnight. One broody is enough until spring. But for that reason, she won't be able to hatch all thirty eggs. Some of them are likely only a few days old, and the first chicks will be over two weeks old before the last eggs hatch.


If I get a couple of broody hens this spring as well, I may have pullets to sell, and plenty of roosters to stew. It will all go into my pig fund....almost enough for the purchase price of the three little pigs so far, I just need the transportation fees, then some food money by June. I'm trying to do it all with cash produced through ss activities, and not from any other source. I will use earnings, however, if I have to. But I probably won't have to. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the challenge and the experiment.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I've had that problem with my hens too. It's why I started to mark the eggs that I start with. Then I can collect all the unmarked eggs the hens keep laying in the broody nest and not have them go to waste.
I think it took Susie's eggs 6 or 7 days to hatch. I candled them remaining ones after 5 days and found that 2 looked viable and tossed the rest. I actually broke them open to make sure I got it right, and I did

 

[freemotion]

I meant to mark them and forgot....when I went to put twelve eggs under her at night, I found three more under her that weren't supposed to be there. I said to myself, well, I'll come back out tomorrow night and mark all the eggs. By the next night, she was not going to allow ANYONE near her eggs without bloodshed....in fact, when I put the twelve under her, I got bitten and bruised several times for my efforts. She got downright murderous very quickly. She is a big girl....so she gets what she wants! Candling was written on my calendar, and after that second night, I just laughed when candling day came.....and went. I try to remind myself when faced with a battle.....Is this the hill I want to die on? Turkey Hill? Nope!

She can sit on exploding eggs, I need my hands to make a living!

 

[FarmerDenise]

Can't blame you there Free She looks a bit bigger than my little Susie and she can get quite vicious for such a little thing

 

[freemotion]

I had to get under her yesterday to check out a bad smell....yup, two chicks died in the effort to hatch, and needed to get out from under Her Warm Highness. There were five vigorous chicks, though. It was quite the trick to get her up....I used the feed pan with one hand, shaking it in her face, while lifting her tail end with the other hand. I have some bruises to show for my good deed.

Today, the smells were even worse, so I had dh help with some tongs while I used both hands to keep her busy....two more chicks had died. Poo. I think the eggs got too chilled, as it has been quite cold here at the beginning of her broodiness. She probably couldn't keep all thirty eggs properly covered, and she may have gone walk-about for a bit too long at times, allowing the edge ones to chill.

Tonight, I went in again and phew! Stinky! I just reached in with a heavy winter coat on and heavy gloves....she seriously tried to take a finger off several times, but I firmly pulled her out and blocked her return with my now bruised, beaten, and battered body. There were six vigerous peeps and another dead one....what was causing the smell??? One of the eggshells I removed must've been from a grenade egg, not a hatched egg. Well, I will need help cleaning it out, so that will be a job for the three of us....me, dh, and my dad.

I don't think she has allowed the chicks to eat yet, and they started hatching Thursday morning. I put some mash and a chick waterer in, hoping. I will have to make sure everyone eats and drinks tomorrow, when I have reinforcements. I pulled a chick out to feed it and she reached out with her wing (after nailing me with her beak for the umpteenth time) and scooped the little fuzzy-butt back in. I managed to snag another one while keeping all of my body parts reasonably intact, and showed it the waterer and the food. She scooped that one back in, too.

Any ideas?

 

[FarmerDenise]

Do you have any fingers left? Hopefully she'll get up tomorrow and let her babies eat! I don't know much about turkey mommas. Chicken mommas are fierce enough for me, and thank goodness my Susie is so little

 

[Dace]

Wow, is she psycho?

You gotta wonder why she isn't making sure they eat. Curious!

 

[freemotion]

Going out in a few minutes, after I finish my tea and prepare for tonight's class. We will clean her nest, hang a heat lamp (hoping that gives her the confidence to let her kids out), and work on the pasture fence.

Yesterday, my dad went out to the back section of the pasture to scout for a place to process the buck, out of sight of the neighbor's yard. We have leafless trees here, so it is a challenge. He was out there around 3:30.

I went out shortly after 4:00 to empty the ash can onto the field, and came across two large areas of white chicken feathers. I asked Dad about this when I went back in....it looked like three of my white or mostly white hens were missing, but it was hard to tell, since they were in the coop and packed in tightly on the roosts by then, and I didn't want to turn on the light. Nothing I could do about it anyways, so there was no sense in disturbing the flock any further.

He went right back out there and said the feathers definitely were NOT there at 3:30. He found a spot where coyotes, we assume, dug under the fence.....the first breech of my fence in almost eight years. Well, I haven't had it that long, but it is my first loss to predators, other than the one young pullet I lost to a hawk last summer, when the hawk dove through my overhead netting.

So we plan on adding a wire low on that section to zap anyone who tries to get in there again. It will take a long time to get the entire perimeter wired low, since most of the fence is in the woods and very brushy. AARRRRGH!

 

[Occamstazer]

You might think I'm horribly uncivilized, but I've asked The Man to pee around the chicken areas every day. We have not lost a bird to a four legged predator since he started doing this

 

[Dace]

My son would take great pride in taking on that responsibility