The warm weather has taken a toll on our blog writing. So many little mouths to feed and so little time. New turkey poults arrived early this morning to round off our total to produce for this year. People really love free range turkey. We have hatched quite a few blue slates this year despite an incubator malfunction that ruined 24 eggs. The turkeys have been fun to raise so far this year. The first batch is 7 weeks old and live in a coop on the premesis with fenced in grass run. The second large batch will be raised on 4-6 acres of pasture in hoop housing similar to our poulet chickens. They will also have their flight feathers clipped and portable electric fencing for protection. Haven't tried day ranging turkeys before, but hopefully everything will work out as well as it did with the chickens. The following photo shows some of the 7 week old turkeys in their coop for the night. Note the disparity in size between the Nicholas Whites and the Blue Slate, Chocolate, and Bourbon Red Heritage turkeys. The heritage indeed take a lot longer to mature.

Nicholas White and Heritage Turkeys