Turkey Woods Farm: Gutters gardens, baby turkeys, and growing squash in the living room

5 March 2013

So, how long has it been since I posted a blog entry? Well, my friends, I guess that's just too long since my husband has been bugging me to post again for a couple of weeks. And now that we aren't in the depth of a cold dark winter, and I have plants growing and babies popping out, I guess I have something to post.

So, I guess biggest news first. BABY TURKEYS!!! Thanks to our new incubator we got for Christmas, we have been able to hatch babies successfully for the first time and we are so excited. We set 24 eggs initially and replaced 2 of them a few days in when we discovered we had a couple that were cracked. Within 10 days we had 19 babies growing along well and removed the eggs that weren't fertile. Now turkeys are supposed to take 28 days to hatch so we were preparing to unplug the turner and move the eggs to cartons on day 26 along with raising the humidity to help with hatching to about 65%, however, on day 25 we were candling the eggs to see if they were all still alive and we discovered 4 eggs had already internally pipped.

After scrambling around and resetting the incubator with stationary cartons to hold the eggs in an upright position (the best for hatching success) and adding sponges to raise the humidity quickly, we put them in "lockdown" early. Within 24 hours we had our first eggs pipped externally, and 24 hours after that we had babies like the one pictured above. The one looking up at us was #1 and the one laying down was #2. Of course, while most hatched easily and well on their own, we had a couple we had to help out. The biggest ones seem to have trouble turning around in the shells to be able to completely "zip" the top of the shell off so we ended up finishing the zipper for them and let them pop themselves out. All said and done we ended up with 15 live babies from 19 eggs.

They are now two week old working on three weeks old and we've had no losses, which is a huge improvement over our shipped birdies that we've had in the past. So all-in-all it's been a major success. Now, if we could just sell a few and make a little money ... Oh well, all in time. Here's some more baby pics to enjoy.


Pushing off the top of the shell

Drying off

Zippering

two weeks old with feathers

My other project of late has been starting vegies for the garden. I've started tomatoes early numerous times in the past, but this year I expanded my experience and started tomatoes, melons, cucumbers and winter squash as well. Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch ......... I NOW know that starting these things indoors is a great idea only I shouldn't have started them at the same time I started my tomatoes. We have winter squash in pots literally everywhere and some are starting to put on blooms!! So we are scrambling now to get them planted outdoors ... somewhere, anywhere, that we can artificially keep warm until we quit having snow and cold. A friend of mine suggested that we just build trellises in our living room and let the squash grow at will with the added bonus that we would avoid the dreaded squash bugs that our warm summers bring. I think I'll pass for this year and just hope we can keep them at bay long enough to get a harvest.

Winter squash two weeks ago


one of over a hundred tomato plants

And newest of all the projects, wedged in between giving spas to cold wet chickens, splinting a broken turkey leg, and building nest boxes for rabbits that will hopefully kindle soon, is building a gutter garden. It isn't done yet so maybe, if I post next week, I'll have some pics of the in process and finished project complete with strawberries ... Just a little teaser for you. And a few more pics for your viewing pleasure -