I love raising Turkeys. No different than raising chickens. They are just big and funny! But if you thought that you were gonna get their eggs year around, you are wrong. They only lay eggs in the spring time, and if they do, they only lay 2-14 eggs per year.
Our male turkey is very sensitive to sound. Whenever we are outside and laughing, they respond. When I laugh, he goes "Gobble, gobble gobble.." Then we laugh again. They definitely keeps up entertain!
When we got them, we though they will go into one of the coops at night. They did not. All of them, plus ducks camped right outside the "Southern Fried Baptist Church" where all of my chickens roost up at night. So we thought maybe we need to build them something. So we built " Butterball Estates." Tall enough for all of them to go inside, and provide shade to everyone in the Cluckshaw during the day. All of our birds love to hang out there during the day, but at night, no one goes there!
They survived the rain, wind storm, snow, ice, dust devil, 18F in the morning... We figured they are going to be fine!
However, we do have one important Turkey. Bourbon Red Turkey! His name is "Clyde." Bourbon Red Turkeys are currently fewer than 5,000 birds of the Bourbon Red Turkey breed that breed in the United States. And it’s also included in a catalog of endangered American foods. We got Clyde from my mentor who teaches me everything about livestock, and she often give me some rare breeds to birds. She raises a lot of endangered species. Whenever I have problem with our livestock, she is my go-to instructor! So I have an agreement not to butcher this turkey. We won't! Clyde is still very young, so to avoid fights among turkeys, he lives with Goats until he gets bigger.
How did we name Clyde? My husband Mike named him after his great grandfather's Bourbon Whiskey, "Clyde May's Straight Bourbon Whiskey" Now you like our Cluckshaw's theme?? "Butterball Estates" Everything have to make us smile! We live here, and work here every day! It has to be funny!
Turducken ??
Turkey Gang!
Young Bourbon Red Turkey " Clyde"
Turkey Eggs!!
1/10/2022. First time in my life I saw a turkey egg! I was Easter egg hunting this afternoon, and saw an unusual looking egg. I texted my mentor with the picture to confirm that's turkey egg. I read some farmer's article about turkey eggs. That article said usually turkey only lay eggs once a year in the spring consecutively between 2-15 days. That's it. So, when I read it I didn't know what to do! Am I supposed to incubate them in the middle of winter and hatch a bunch of chicks? Or Did the article I read was untrue.
I witnessed that the article was untrue. This Turkey has been laying egg almost everyday since January 10. Today is January 30th. She seems to lay eggs in the mid day. People ask me what does turkey egg taste like. To me, their eggs taste like a regular chicken egg. Just got a little bit bigger. At our farm, average weight of turkey egg is about 3 oz, which is little big bigger than a duck egg.