Oops, Brown Turkeys!

The previous post shows some pictures of my turkeys poults. We had separated the white Royal Palms from the brown Bronzes a month ago because we wanted purebreds in order to sell them. Plus some people may want a white feathered bird instead of a dark one.

So far the only eggs that were ready to hatch were from the Palms, so much to my surprise when I got up this morning I found this in my incubator!

It should have looked like this!

The first two that hatched this morning looked very similar, kinda like a Bronze but then the third one was strange...kinda funny, it has a brown stripe down it's back and a polka-dot on it's forehead. I cannot even imagine what it will look like when it gets big. This coloration may be common in crossbred turkeys, I hope someone will let me know.

See the stripe?

You can kinda see it better in the next picture. Who knows...maybe it will disapear as it grows. It might be one funny lookin' turkey.

I belong to the Rare Heritage Turkey Group at Yahoo and I have asked if anyone there has crossed these two breeds and knows what they will look like when they get big. The group is a really good place for all information about turkeys. The moderators as well as the members have a wealth of knowledge to share. I have learned more there than anywhere else! I hope they will fill me in.
On now to the subject of Roosters. As you can see from the picture below..."One of these things is not like the other"!

We have a new man in town and his name is Dominic. He just looked so very Italian, what with the black and white and red accents. My brother-in-law, Tom said I should name him Checkers but for some reason Dominic fits him.

We have sold the Phoenix roosters to a nice lady that lives down by Marietta, she is coming to get them tomorrow. Plus, I want to hatch some chicken eggs and want a heavy breed so the babies and their eggs will be big, also I can't wait to see the colors when he gets mixed with the others.

Speaking of my brother-in-law...here he is actually holding a baby turkey. This is huge for him. He is the absolute definition of "city boy". He and my sister bring a change of shoes when they come to our house and he tells her that she has to leave them in the garage when they get home. Two weeks ago Kevin had a tick on his arm, probably from the cat, and he goes in and acts like he is going to put it on Tom. Well, you can imagine.

When Tom came last weekend for our bonfire, he brought mosquito and tick spray with him and sprayed it on himself before going fourwheeling. I would rather pick a tick off of me than spray that stuff on me. We don't have deer ticks here so I'm not worried. Don't get me wrong, they still creep the heck out of me if I get one on me but what can you do.

(I have another turkey egg piped and can't wait to see the color, I will up-date when he/she arrives.)

Happy Spring!

Beth

Update: Turkey Hatch

We ended up with 11 babies. Below is a video of the last one when it hatched.

We Have Baby Turkeys!

See what greeted me this morning when I got up.










There are three hatched and some more have pipped but no action as of yet. I will be very thrilled if we only get these three. I have 15 more eggs slated to hatch on the 29th and seven goose eggs for a few days after that...that will be plenty. Plus, we have the 15 turkey eggs coming that we ordered. Also, I am going to fill up the incubator with all the other eggs that I have been gathering since I put these in. I have eggs from the Bronze hen to put in too. We have two Bronze hens but only one is laying. She started laying much later than the Palms did. I wonder if that is normal.

Here's my little guy!

I got to take some pictures while the third one was hatching. There was a hole but it was not all the way around yet. You can see where he was working his way around on the hole. The other babies were tripping all over it so I took them out and put them in the brooder so this one could have some peace and quiet.

See it's little beak poking out? After about an hour it finally pushed it's way out and started squawking.

It looks like a dinosaur!

It is so cool how they just popped off the tops of the shell. I numbered the eggs as I put them in so I could see if the ones I held longer would hatch. Also, I wanted to see if both hens were fertile. I was not sure if the one was laying down for the tom. For instance, I have two number two's, four's and eight's and maybe only one number six because one of the hens did not lay that day. If only one of any one number hatches thatn for sure she was not bred.

Here they are in the temperary brooder until we get the big one set up in the chicken house.

I can't believe how the month has flown by. I was looking at old posts and when I saw the one with the snow it seemed so surreal. The day I took that picture I thought spring would never get here and all of a sudden......BAM!... it snuck up on me. We have been so busy with spring maintence that I need to be still and enjoy. It seems that my mind has been racing. There are so many things I would like to get accomplished in these next few weeks.

We need to build a chicken tractor, get the brooder ready, finish the barn floor, build our plucker, get fish for the pond, order my turkeys (today!), finish trimming my dog, get ready for bonfire party on Saturday, get the garden going and on and on. We planted 100 hybrid willows and six blueberry bushes this last weekend. I couldn't walk for a day, my legs were killing me! Just ten more cherry bushes and we are done planting trees for now.

Phewwwww, now I can relax, I am not a failure at egg hatching! An update soon on how the final hatch turned out.

Happy, happy days,

Beth

A Creature in our Barn!

Can you guess what these big teeth and claws belong to? Scroll down......

And down.............

A scary scary possum!

Last weekend we decided to clean out the barn and install some really nice steel shelves that we got from work. They are reorganizing things there and wanted rid of them. Of course we had to buy them, they were going to scrap them but decided to charge us for them when they found out someone wanted them.

When we pulled a bunch of stuff out of the corner we found a big pile of leaves back there that had an indentation where an animal had been sleeping. The nest was made almost entirely of oak leaves. It was so strange because there are no trees close to the barn, let alone oak trees. Really strange. I've never researched nest building by possums but if I did I guess I would find out that they prefer oak leaves. It had to take forever for that possum to carry all those leaves there.

This is what the corner looked like before and below is what it looked like after we put in our shelves! The shelves are really great. We have so many building supplies but we can never find them. Almost invariable we have to to the hardware to buy supplies when we know we have them lost somewhere in the barn. Now we can find everything!

After we saw the pile of leaves we thought the creature was gone (it being daylight and all) but then Kevin saw a movement of white out of the corner of his eye and saw the possum trying to hide. He wanted some gloves so he could catch it but of course the state of the barn being what it was we could not find any so he said "Forget it , I'll just catch it with no gloves". He looked for something long like a big screwdriver or something and I was afraid he would hurt it which was crazy cause it had the potential to hurt our chickens. He said he wasn't going to hurt it but I didn't want to watch cause I was afraid it was going to bite him so I hurried out of the barn and listened.

After some scuffling sounds and a little commotion he came walking out of the barn victorious, possum in hand! He used the long piece of steel to keep it away from his hand. It kept trying to climb up it's own body to bite him but it was so slow moving it was easy for Kevin to keep it at bay.

You can see from the pictures that he would just gently keep pushing his head back down.

We took her over to the woods and let her go. I don't know why I thought it was a girl but it just seemed like it was female. It did not seem vicious at all. Just kind of slow and sweet. I just kept thinking it might have babies in her little pouch. If she comes back we are going to take her far away to West Branch State Park. It is about a mile away, too far for a possum to find it's way back, and she will not be able to hurt our chickens! Nor will all the babies that are in her pouch.

There is a video below of when we let her go. She ran straight to a tree and scurried into a hole at the base of the tree. Kevin noticed that half of it's tail was missing, you can see in the picture where it looks funny at the end.

It was a beautiful weekend, in the 60's and sunny so we worked and got a lot done in the barn and with the chickens. I cleaned out the bottom of the chicken feeder where a lot of powder from the feed had accumulated. The chickens did not want to eat it so I presumed it was stale or whatever. I put it in a big tub and set in the chicken yard for them to peck at if they wanted. Well after a minute or so I looked over and a hen turkey had decided to take a dust bath in it. And then the other one joined her.

She spread the feed everywhere! The chickens did come and peck at it now and then so it wasn't all wasted.
She really enjoyed the bath. We want to make a covered area for them to bath in. I read that using sand and wood ashes is really good because the ashes keep pests away. We also built a new door and fixed the fence that seperates the yard from the chickens. There was a spot on the fence that was low so that we could step over to get into the pen but Puppy could easily jump over it so we had to fix it. She was eating eggs and it wasn't too bad until she got a turkey egg and then it had to stop! I just love the new door. We keep it open most of the day so they can wander the yard. Everyday when Kevin and I get home from work (weather permitting), we get a cup of coffee and sit on the back deck and watch the chickens. Blissful.

Here is the view from the deck, I just went out and took the picture, kinda gloomy and chilly today but all in all the grass is greening up and I love it.

Below is a candid shot of Kevin relaxing and watching the chickens. We didn't do much relaxing all weekend. He was in the process of making a separate area for our Bronze turkeys. We are really enjoying the process of hatching eggs (we will enjoy it more if they hatch successfully, hatch day is the 20th of April), so we wanted to separate the Bronze from the Palms. The Bronze just started laying so, so far so good. I will keep you posted. (A friend from work gave me seven goose eggs. They are mostly Ebden so they will be the big fat white ones. It will be fun to watch them on our new pond, again, if they hatch.)




When we cleaned out the barn we decided to sell our old buffet. It is beautiful but just too big for our house. The label on the back says it was manufactured in "Gettysburg, Penns". I think that is really cool that it was made in Gettysburg. I'm not sure how old it is. I would love to know more about it.


Check out the possum video below. It is really short. Just a quick shot of her running to the tree.

Finally spring is here. The trees arrived that we ordered so as things gear up we are getting busier and busier.



Have fun everyone, Spring is here!

Beth















Possum,

about the word and the spelling of the word ......



Opossum:

Preferred to "possum" for the American marsupial, except in colloquial context. Do not write 'possum. The correct spelling for the Australian phalanger is possum.


~ National Geographic Style Manual




Word History:

The word opossum takes us back to the earliest days of the American colonies. The settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in 1607 by the London Company, chartered for the planting of colonies. Even though the first years were difficult, promotional literature was glowing. In one such piece, A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, published in 1610, we find this passage: "There are ... Apossouns, in shape like to pigges." This is the first recorded use of opossum, although in a spelling that differs from the one later settled on to reproduce the sound of the Virginia Algonquian word from which our word came. The word opossum and its shortened form possum, first recorded in 1613 in more promotional literature, remind us of a time when the New World was still very new, settlers were few, and the inhabitants for whom the New World was not new, were plentiful.



~The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,

Incubating Turkey Eggs!

I am so beyond excited! We are going to start some eggs in our incubator today. We have saved up 14 eggs and we will add any that are laid today. I am really afraid that some may have gotten too cold before we brought them into the house but it will be a learning experience that I will thoroughly enjoy. I have kept them in a box, covered with a towel, on the floor by an exterior door. This picture show 3 turkey eggs next to an Americana egg.

We do not have a basement so the only place that was cool enough was on the floor near the door. It is a little drafty so it is cooler than the room temperature so I was hoping it would work. I have done some research and it said that the eggs can be kept for a couple weeks in a cool dark place. Here is the incubator that Kevin gave me for my birthday. I will have to turn the eggs by hand two or three times a day. We have an automatic egg turner but it will not work for turkey eggs, only chicken eggs. Something about turkey's legs being hurt by standing on end through the incubation period or something like that. Not sure but I don't mind turning them. " And oh, by the way, lucky us!" (she said sarcastically) We got four, five or maybe even six more inches of snow last night. It is a record snow fall for the month of March for our area.

We left for work 10 minutes early this morning only to turn back when we realized we would still be late. The roads had not been plowed at all. Oh well, I got to come home and pay bills and blog, way better than working.
Lovey, lovely snow!

My turkeys have been fighting! We may separate them but for now we are hoping they will get over it. I took a video of them and have attempted to upload it and have it here so we will see what happens after I post this. Here's hoping it works!

They said warmer weather next week, mid to upper 50's. I'm really happy except I get to wade through poopy mud for a month or two, NICE!

We ordered six blueberry bushes (two each of three different varieties) and three bush cherry trees. I have never seen cherry bushes before but they say all kinds of good things about them. Can't wait.

Spring is coming....sob, sniffle...soon.

Here's to warmer weather dreaming,
Beth

ICE STORM AND SNOW STORM OF 2008

Anyone living in northeastern Ohio will understand how ready I am for spring. We just had a terrible ice storm that left 175,000 people without electricity for a couple days. The electric company said (in a recording) that as of 9:00pm on Wednesday night they had restored power to 150,000 people, guess who was in the 20,000 that did not have power yet? ME! That was totally unacceptable to a person who uses the Internet for almost all of everything!

(can anyone guess what it is that caused the ice to freeze like this?)

No banking, no blogging, no searching, no shopping, no checking on things, no working on my website, no checking the weather, no checking kids grades, no Halo or COD4, no looking up phone numbers, no emailing, no emails to read, nothing, nothing, not!



Oh, I almost forgot, no heat in the house, no TV to watch, no flushing toilets, no lights (even though I would still flick the switches every time I walked into a room), no microwave, no coffee for him, no tea for me, no computer, no clocks (well we do have 2 battery ones but I had to walk clear over to them all the way across the house at 3:00 am and hold up my battery powered light to see them when I thought I was late for work and I don't even have to get up until 4:30 am .... nice!), nothing for the kids to do although we still made the 9 yr. old read her books by candlelight even though it supposedly hurt Abe Lincolns eyes.



(Our frozen back yard.)

I'm kinda lying about the no tea and coffee thing. What I really meant was we had no Bunn Coffee Maker and no Hotshot for my tea. Luckily we have propane that we use to heat our water and cook with so we could cook but that meant actually boiling water for tea and making instant coffee. How archaic, actually boiling water for tea! The Hotshot is the best thing ever made. It heats water in like 90 seconds (I'll go look and see how long it really is, hold on....here it is right off the ad.

"Sunbeam 6170 Hot Shot Hot Water Dispenser" Heats up to 16 oz water from room temperature to steam point in 90 seconds - faster than a microwave "

It's awesome. I will try to find it on Amazon so I can put a picture of it in my ads so you can see it. I love it!(UPDATE: found item and put it in my Amazon ads.) It is so much better than microwaved water, something happens to it when it is microwaved, yuck!

Below is a picture of our Turkey flying to his roost. They just keep on roosting up there, snow, ice rain or shine.)

Our power finally came on at about 4:00am, just in time to have to go to work with no bath the night before. A sponge bath just doesn't cut it. The last time our power went off Kevin and I and the kids were sitting around a candlelit table trying to see good enough to play a board game. He and I thought we were having a really cozy snowy winter day bonding moment with the kids when all of sudden the lights came back on and up the kids jumped and off to their rooms they went to do their thing with stuff that takes electricity. (Kevin even wanted to keep the lights off and continue our game but they weren't interested.)



And then, to add insult to injury we had a major SNOWSTORM the next week which was Friday, two days ago. (Thank goodness we didn't lose power or Internet access.) They even shut down our plant and made us all go home at 2:30 pm on Friday. In the history of our plant, this has never happened. We now have new corporate owners which must be softy's cause the old owners would NEVER do that. You came to work no matter what. They would say "You have lived in Northeast Ohio all your life, you are used to snow, just leave early and GET HERE!"

Here is Puppy trying to hop around in the snow. This shows how deep it is. I had to call and call her to come over to where the snow was deep, plus I had the camera which she hates. The dogs don't like going potty in deep snow. They just go to the foot of the steps of the deck and do their business right there in the walkway that Kevin shoveled. Really nice!

Luckily, the chickens and turkeys have their little lean-to to hide under. It's pretty cozy. We have one Buff Orpington that is broody and won't stop sitting. Her favorite spot is on the hay bale under the roof. Unfortunately, it did not keep all the snow off of her.

You can see her all covered in snow.

Poor thing....Kevin brushed her off so she wouldn't get too cold.

This is Cleo, our Chow/Lab mix. The snow does not even melt when it is on her. She will lay on the porch and be almost covered and she doesn't feel a bit of cold cause of her Chow coat insulation. Puppy wants so bad for her to run and play in the snow but she is about 9 years old and doesn't feel like cavorting in deep snow. She will play all day when she doesn't have lug her chubby behind (actually it is her tummy that is fat) through 15 inches of snow.




Soon, this is how it will look here. I see where people in other places are already starting their gardens and I feel incredibly.... umm, not jealous but sad, kinda. I love living here near my family but what in the world can the people that live here be thinking! If you had a choice when you came to America in the 1700's or whenever it was, why would you pick Ohio? It must have been summer and they had no idea what winter would bring! Or else their dream was to be a trapper.

OK, I had to add this picture just because, people with cats will understand.

Spring is coming everyone! And be glad your ancestors picked somewhere else to settle!

(except the Farm Chick cause she just lives across the county from me)

Here's to warm thoughts,

Beth

Unwanted Visitor

The other day as I was searching away on the net I heard some low growling and grumbling. I turned to look and saw this. OK, first of all, why is that puppy using my cute little night stand with inlaid marble (that my mother gave me for my birthday three years ago) as a platform to look outside? Second of all, usually there is a cup of coffee or some such thing on there and now I know who is knocking them on the floor.

And on the subject of coffee. Usually Kevin's first cup of coffee is not finished and as he rushes off to work he leaves it on said nightstand where Puppy promptly...I was going to say drinks it but she doesn't really drink as much as laps it, all up. Consequently, that puppy, all charged up with way too much caffeine for her little body, proceeds to tear up anything and everything she can find. And it is all done on our bed .

Yesterday it was a pencil, the day before it was most of the toilet paper and tissues from the bathroom trash can. We never know as we walk into the bedroom after work what it will be but it almost always is something. Now, she does not always drink the coffee cause I try to remember to put it up in the morning before we leave but she still tears up stuff, it is just with way more gusto when powered with caffeine. (twice it has been our cell phones, we had no antennas on either of our phones forever)

This monster is what they were growling at. Our neighbors got this Rottweiler as a puppy a while ago and he has started to get closer and closer to our house (and chickens) all winter. If he sees us he will run but it's a little scary to have him roaming our property not knowing his temperament.

From what we have seen of our neighbor's behavior he is a jerk and who knows how he is training or not training his dog. Our neighbor's dogs from the other side of us used to visit all the time and it was great until the fateful massacre day and it all went to hell. They don't talk to us anymore..hmmm, don't even wave. Enough said about that subject!

I took these pictures of this dog to eventually send to our neighbor with a polite warning of the consequences of his dog coming into contact with our livestock or humanstock in any way, shape or form. In the past he has not come past the woods line on the property between us and them but this is just 50 feet from our house...WAY too close for comfort.

On another note, does anybody think their family has too many toys? I do! As you can see below, last summer one of our toys broke. A little 9 year old was barreling down the trail at full speed and all of a sudden her tire flew off. She ran up to the house and it was so funny seeing her face and listening to her explaination. She had her seat belt on so she was safe and it doesn't really go that fast, it just seems like it when you are her passenger over the bumps. Her granny sits in the passenger seat for hours riding with her, usually with a nice padded seat cushion under her.

We came to the rescue but spent an hour looking for the thing that holds the tire on but gave up and Kevin had to go to the farm store and get one.

Here is the toy I prefer below. Very comfortable and it carries heavy things for me in the cart. And Kevin sometimes lets me drive when we ride around!

I am begging for a finish mower for it to make the lawn mowing fun. They are about a thousand dollars so I am not getting very far in my begging. We just have a crappy rider that breaks down all the time, and we have a LOT of lawn to mow. It would be great to mow the lawn on this, it even has a cup holder!

This is Kevins toy, even when he has to clean out a messy ditch in the muddy spring. He love his 8N!

Here is the one toy we are finally getting rid of. It is the coolest thing but so impracticle for us. We only have 5 acres and this baby need more. It is a Rail buggy, the kind they ride on sand dunes and mountian trails. We were going to make it street legal and ride it around in the summer for fun but when you farm there is no time to ride around for fun. Only on the aformentioned tractor or maybe the lawn mower (and it will be fun when I get my finish mower, please let me know if anyone knows where to get a finish mower cheap).



OH MY! I just thought of something. We should find someone who would trade us.....hmmmmm I wonder if it that is possible although the rail buggy cost a lot more than a thousand dollars. Maybe when we sell it we could get one. Kevin will probably say we should use the money to roof the house, blah, who cares about roofing the house. I don't mind a coffee cup over the hole in the roof. Especially when I could get an awesome finish mower.

Anyway, here she is, isn't she a beauty. I wish I could keep her.

Have a fun day everyone, I have to clean the house cause I am having visitors today!
Beth