Hi from North Canterbury

Hi and thanks for letting me join....I thought I had but maybe it was a long time ago and if so I've got no idea who I was registered as or my password!!

We live on a lifestyle block in North Canterbury and have done for around 12 years now. Keep sheep, cattle (or should I say did ...the last one recently moved to a colder residence), chickens and Turkeys at the moment.

Looking forward to having a good read and natter.

Cheers
Manda

Hi Manda and welcome, glad you made it back. Lots to be learned here. Do you breed your turkeys. I've not had much luck, silly mothers, biffing eggs out all over the show. Just deciding whether to give up on them, let the hens raise the eggs or what. Your drying out where you are? Cheers.

Hi Deanna...yes things seem to be soaking away nicely - the spontaneous duck pond has jut about disappeared so happy days

Re the Turkeys....we got them about a year and a half ago ...the first clutch of eggs which was shared by 2 of the jenny's started off at 21 live chicks and ended up with 2 surviving which I was absolutely gutted about and made me realise just how useless they could be as mum's - they didn't biff the eggs but they just did't look after the poults.
That being said one of the jenny's who was involved in the first disaster had another clutch of eggs and from that she had 15 survive so I do't know whether it was because she just hadn't know what to do the first time round.

Currently they all free range but our plan is to pen them (because they are destroying my garden with the dust craters!). We're not really breeding them as such but I really like them so I'm happy to keep them around and then freeze or sell on any that we can't keep and I'm thinking that if they have somewhere to lay that is enclosed and they can't drag the babies all over the place then that should work better. It'll also mean that if they do abandon them I'll be able to see (because they hide in plain sight - I couldn't find them but then they moved and I was able to see where they'd been and I'd been walking past them all the time!)

The trouble with Turkey hens is, they just wander off when the poults may be hiding, and end up leaving them behind. They also take them through long wet grass, so the babies chill and then die. If you can, you should confine the mother with her babies in a safe warm dry place and only let them out to free range once they are big enough and have good feather cover.

Welcome back.

Yes, where I bought my poults they had a little nursery area set up, probably about 3 metres by 6 metres, with no long grass etc. But they sure are the hardest to raise I'm thinking.