Devonviolet Acres

Devonviolet

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CONGRATULATIONS ON THE FARM!!!!!!!!!
:weee:weee:weee:weee
That is fantastic news!! I am so happy for you!! I have a few small purple sweet potatoes set aside for you. When you get moved in, drop me a PM with your mailing address and I'll send them to you. You can start vines from them for spring planting. I also have some green bean seeds for you.

I am so excited! What kind of wire are you going to put up? I am using horse wire with the 2"x4" squares. It is more expensive than the goat wire, but I like it that the small holes will keep everything in, even chickens!

I've been at our new place this week. I finally finished the 2nd coat of paint. I tore up vinyl floors and got the sub floors prepped for laying the pine floors. I am exhausted and have a head cold now. :he
:weee Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! :weee

I am so excited about getting your purple sweet potato slips!!! And bean seeds too!!! :bow You are awesome'! I was kind of hoping we could get together some time soon. Maybe you could give me the sweets then.

We LOVE green beans. Summer before last we grew them until they were coming out our ears. We froze them, pressure canned them, and even dehydrated them. And we used them all up by the beginning of last summer!

We are having a man come give us an estimate for putting our fence in. DH just doesn't have the energy to dig fence posts or stretch wire anymore. I'm with y'all on the 2X4" woven wire. We are going to put a hot wire 6" above the ground and maybe at the top. If we don't put hot wire on the top, we will at least string barb wire along the top. We plan to train the goats and dogs to the hot wire, from the git go! So, hopefully we won't have them testing it and figuring out they can push past it quick.

I'm sorry you got that bad cold. It's not easy to get all that work done when you are sick. Please take it easy until you feel better, so your body can heal. In case you didn't see it, I posted everything I do, to get over a cold more quickly, on my LGD Adventure thread. Maybe something there will help you feel better. :hugs
 

Southern by choice

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:weee:weee:weee:weee

Congrats! That is such wonderful news!

I Love the house! The whole place looks so peaceful and serene. What a blessing. I know you must be floating tonight. After so many years and so many moves. Settled! Just brings a big smile for you! :hugs
I love your welcoming gifts! 2 chickens and a turkey! How cool is that!:D
You did give me a chuckle... that was a show of aggression by the turkey hen.:lol: Turkeys are extremely territorial and not always welcoming to strangers. They will fluff up, drop wing maybe even dance. They are making themselves as large as they can.
This is one of our Narrans, a breeding Tom- He is 6 months old 28 lbs... They are LARGE turkeys.
Your girl isn't a black. We raised Heritage Blacks and Heritage chocolates for years.
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Devonviolet

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:weee:weee:weee:weee

Congrats! That is such wonderful news!

I Love the house! The whole place looks so peaceful and serene. What a blessing. I know you must be floating tonight. After so many years and so many moves. Settled! Just brings a big smile for you! :hugs
I love your welcoming gifts! 2 chickens and a turkey! How cool is that!:D
You did give me a chuckle... that was a show of aggression by the turkey hen.:lol: Turkeys are extremely territorial and not always welcoming to strangers. They will fluff up, drop wing maybe even dance. They are making themselves as large as they can.
This is one of our Narrans, a breeding Tom- He is 6 months old 28 lbs... They are LARGE turkeys.
Your girl isn't a black. We raised Heritage Blacks and Heritage chocolates for years.
View attachment 6107
Thanks, Southern. Yes, it is a calm, peaceful place. I do feel blessed. We are anxious to get started with all our plans. And, YES! Not too many people can say they got 2 chickens and a turkey for a welcome gift! :celebrate

WOW! Now that you mention it, I can see where our Turkey hen was showing aggression. :rant It didn't work!!! All I could do was laugh. :lol: It was so darn cute! :weee:lol:

I can see that our girl looks like your Tom, although her snood isn't anywhere near as long! WOW! 28 pounds! Now that's a big Turkey! I don't know how much she weighs, but I know she's no 28 pounds! :ep I looked at photos of Narragansett hens, and they don't really look like our girl. I know she's a hen, because she lays eggs, but she looks like the Tom. She put her tail up and strutted about during mating season too. Is that what the females do?

So, you've raised Heritage Blacks, Chocolates and Narragansetts. Do you have a preference?
 

Southern by choice

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Anything that isn't a Tom! :lol:

Actually, I loved our Chocolates. Our most favorite turkey has been a black hen. She is still with us, she walks up the steps and looks through the glass door. If you open it she will come right in.
Even our sweetest Toms will get mean over time.
Our Hens did great at sitting and hatching but the rearing the first year wasn't good. Mostly because poults don't listen to their mothers and find a million ways to kill themselves. Second hatch better.... and so on. Once we started with second generation they were wonderful.
Truthfully turkeys can be dangerous too. Get 4-5 Toms that stand almost 3 feet tall and get aggressive and can jump 6 ft high easily from a standstill... scary. When our testers come out the turkeys will go right after them. They are highly territorial. We keep them away from our testers as they can really hurt ya. They sleep in the trees or on the goat building. They can fly up very high. They will guard anything that they believe is theirs, if a foreign bird flies into their area they will go right after it yet a chicken that is in their area and lays her nest (always hidden somewhereLOL) and hatches her chicks... the turkeys will protect them as they think that those are "their" birds.
Homegrown turkey is delicious. I am not a big turkey eater but they are tasty! Aged in fridge for 5 days and roasted YUMMMM!
We have raised a lot of turkeys.
Would like to NOT have turkeys for awhile. :hide Except the one Hen.
Great for ticks though.
 

BrownSheep

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Not directed at me but I'm going to chime in too because I LuuuUUUuuuuv turkeys.
I've raised Chocolates, Bourbons, Narragansetts, Royal palms, Blacks, Sweetgrass, and BBB.
I haven't had in issue with aggression with any of my birds. My toms will fluff up but they spend about 90% of their time displaying anyway.

All of my heritage birds are friendly and social. They don't want to be petted but they do want to be with you. Both the Sweetgrass and Royal palms have been very curious birds. I may or may not have been stuck on a hay stack last month and arguing with my dad about how to get down. One of my Sweetgrass hens, Marshmellow, started climbing up the haystack towards me and started distress calling.

Part of their daily routine ( and they do have routines) is to stand in front or the French Doors and stare inside. Drive my mom mad since they poop on the patio.

Overall, I love turkeys far more than chickens and I've had a lot of chickens.
 

Southern by choice

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Not directed at me but I'm going to chime in too because I LuuuUUUuuuuv turkeys.
I've raised Chocolates, Bourbons, Narragansetts, Royal palms, Blacks, Sweetgrass, and BBB.
I haven't had in issue with aggression with any of my birds. My toms will fluff up but they spend about 90% of their time displaying anyway.

All of my heritage birds are friendly and social. They don't want to be petted but they do want to be with you. Both the Sweetgrass and Royal palms have been very curious birds. I may or may not have been stuck on a hay stack last month and arguing with my dad about how to get down. One of my Sweetgrass hens, Marshmellow, started climbing up the haystack towards me and started distress calling.

Part of their daily routine ( and they do have routines) is to stand in front or the French Doors and stare inside. Drive my mom mad since they poop on the patio.

Overall, I love turkeys far more than chickens and I've had a lot of chickens.
@BrownSheep - all of our Toms get aggressive... this has me curious. Our Turkeys generally only like me and my son... we are the ones that take care of them. They don't like the rest of the family. You'd think with 11 of us they would be better. Ours display all the time too but the males at about 1-2 start getting mean. Cannot understand it. Any insight?
Do you have a lot of people around them?
 

BrownSheep

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Not constantly but they do see people when they visit. ( delivery man, relatives, cleaning lady)
My dad and I have the most to do with them but they are respectful of everybody.
I would ask what your hen to tom ratio is but I have way more toms than hens.
I handle(aka play with) mine a lot as chicks especially the hatchery stock. I have to lock up even the hen batches( along with the hen) because they will lose all of them like you said.

I would wonder if it's bloodlines but most of my starters came from either hatcheries or Porter's Turkeys. The other breeders I've bought/sold with don't have aggressive toms either.
 

Southern by choice

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The hen tom ratio varies. 2-3 to 1 and sometimes 1 to 1
They free range everywhere.
The toms generally get aggressive after the poults hatch. Then they get really protective. We spend a lot of time with them too asp oults and they follow us like puppies, sleep on our porch and generally see us as their protectors, until they get older.
Our stock is generally private heritage breed breeders.
We did have hatchery stock once and they were the same.:hu
We only had to lock up the one hatch (the first generation) they seem to do better and better with increased hatches and generations.
Our biggest issue has been the hens will leave the safety of the LGD's territory and go acres away to lay up a nest... coyotes get them, we bring the rest of the eggs home and stick them under a cochin. :(
 

BrownSheep

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Huh:hu I'm sorry turkeys haven't behaved for you. I have a pair of toms coming up on 4 who have been real gentlemen. Not that my toms won't go after one another during breeding season but they've always behaved for me.

My hens get a little agressive when they are one the nest or if you really, really upset the chicks.

My grandmother also swears all turkey toms are aggressive. Said she had one give her welts down the back of her legs right before she went into deliver. Apparently, the delivery nurse didn't quite believer her when she said her turkeys got her. Any who, she just barely coming around to my boys but still wont turn her back on them.
 

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