Turkey Poults: Just a couple more weeks until they’re outside!
The turkeys are now about six weeks old. This means in a couple of weeks, weather depending, they can be moved to their outside run. In warmer parts of the country, folks may move their birds outside even younger than we can here on the Palmer Divide. This weekend we are staring down 8″ of snow and overnight lows in the low-20s this weekend in Black Forest. This means that our young birds will remain indoors for the foreseable future.
The turkeys enjoy the large dog crate complete with Ponderosa Pine roosting bars, but I can tell these inquisitive little feather-heads are ready to stretch their wings and explore. I can’t wait to get them into their outside space.
The poults quickly learned how to use their new feeder, which reduces waste and keeps ants or other curious pests at bay. In the photo at right, Cracker the turkey poult shows others how to stick their head into the feeder for a meal. They devour dried black soldier fly larvae, but are lukewarm to the fresh buckwheat sprouts I grow for them.
Meet the Fuzzy Tops
We had an opportunity to pick up “4 chicks” and came home with four surprises! Specifically, we now have two Houdans and two Silkies. Both breeds are striking in appearance, but both are new to us. These birds are about 5 1/2 weeks old.
The Houdans are standard sized birds. while they’ll love our hot, dry summers, they are not as fond of cold, snowy winters. The Silkies are a bantam breed, meaning they are smaller than a standard bird at maturity. Silkies have feathered legs that make them resemble the ladies from ABBA wearing disco bell bottoms. Perhaps they will grow up into Dancing Queens? All four of these birds are adorable, but a little ridiculous looking compared to run of the mill egg layers! These birds also love black soldier fly larvae and eat grass when outside on a nice day in the mobile coop. But they show less interest in fresh grass and buckwheat sprouts presented to them.
This year’s “Great Chick Wars” have resulted in many chicken keepers exploring new breeds as we refresh our flocks. These four fuzzy cuties are certainly a new experience for our homestead.
Bielefelder Chicks
All chicks are cute. But let me tell you: Bielefelder chicks win the Cuteness Olympics! These little ladies (Bielefelders are auto-sexing, meaning we can distinguish boys vs. girls upon hatching) look like baby chipmunks with beaks. They are cute and surprisingly mellow for such tiny animals. These little sweethearts are still on their starter feed + chick electrolyte diet.
Mature Americauna-Easter Egger Hens
The OG Americauna-EE hens are laying well considering we are coming up on the third anniversary of their hatch date this summer! I regularly get 4 eggs a day from them, but on special days, these wonderful ladies gift me 5-6 eggs.
One of the girls is showing some broodiness tendencies. I’ll regularly find her hanging out in the nesting box on a few eggs. She’s not prickly with me when I pet her chest and collect the eggs. But she’s persistently sitting. As we don’t have a rooster, I’d rather she “lay” than “sit”, but they’ve provided me about 2 1/2 years of amazing, delicious blue-green eggs, so she’s earned the chance to chill.
Gardening
The ‘taters are in the ground. Maybe we’ll get another 40 pounds of Colorado Rose and Russets from our small plot this year?
Along with the buckwheat sprouts for the birds, we have our garden starts going under the basement grow lights. The cucumbers, zucchini and cherry tomatoes are sprouting. The peppers (hot and sweet varieties) are a bit more recalcitrant, as usual.
I am very impressed, you have a lot going on and it all looks great, specially the baby chicks, sooooooo cute. Love it. Thanks for sharing
For sure, Maria, it’s a lot going on. But it’s so much fun! I love that we can have entire meals in mid-summer or early fall sourced almost completely from our own land. That amazes me! And, I can share this bounty with friends, like you. 🙂