Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Turkeys have Arrived


We received our shipment of 60 bronze & white broad breasted turkeys this morning. I will take some pictures over the weekend. I am excited they are a heritage breed which I did not know when John first ordered them. We received our typical phone call at 2:46 am from the post office saying they had the birds, we were both so exhausted we slept through the call. John usually jumps right out of bed and heads over right away, especially when the weather was cooler and the excitement of getting chicks was so new to us.
We are looking forward to having a fresh bird for Thanksgiving! (* ok I am wrong they are not heritage...oops, farm mom set me straight - I did a gGoogle search last night and misunderstood, sorry!)

At the library I picked up an arm load of books including Storey's Guide to Raising Poultry which has a lot of good info. Did you know chickens eggs come out the same place as their poop and some of the hens body parts "privates" are called the same as ours....I had no idea!
The other book I borrowed that I am really enjoying is "Just One More Thing Doc" - Further Farmyard Adventures of a Maine Veterinarian by Bradford Brown. I am only on chapter 2 and I find myself reading it with a smirk on my face. I will post more on this later.
Have a good night all!

7 comments:

Amy said...

Well I'm very interested in hearing about your turkeys as they grow. I know next to nothing about them. My son wanted to know if I'd ever raise a turkey and I said yes. I'd personally like to have a pair of Royal Palms!

Paula said...

Wow- those are beautiful birds!!
I've never heard of that book "Just one more thing..." I'll have to check that out! I love reading stuff like that.
Have a great weekend.. hope the party is a blast!

Anonymous said...

You picked up one of my most favorite books! Josh and I have read it cover-to-cover and it is very useful!

I love the turkey pictures! Our turkeys swim!

They are wonderful birds and you will love having them!

Blessings,
Lacy

Anonymous said...

It's great that you got heritage breeds! It will be nice to have a fresh turkey for T-Day:)
Your pictures of the deer and turkey prints were great! I really should stop second guessing myself huh?

Kel read the Storey's guide and it's a great book! We have the dairy goat one from them also. It has a wealth of info in there too. Have a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

Umm...if you got the broad breasted breeds they are not heritage, right? The way I understand it is that heritage breeds are the old varieties: royal palm, bronze, narragansett, burbon red etc.... The broad breasted types are hybrids, like a cornish cross in a chicken. They cannot mate on their own as their genetics are geared toward producing the large breast meat. Please let me know if you've heard otherwise I would be interested in the info. Good luck with them!

Country Girl said...

Thanks for all your feedback, I love to read my comments. You are right farm mom. Last night I did a quick Google search and all of them heritage breed popped up. Obviously I did not read through it enough, new at this, what can I say. Thanks for setting me straight!

Don said...

I did turkeys once, and they were fun to have around. They got quite large too. Thanksgiving was superior that year. Hmmm, maybe I need to do that again!