Last year I ordered 25 chicks through the mail sent as day olds. Of these we promptly lost 10, they seem more fragile than chickens in that first week or so though I certainly saw mistakes I had made also that could have improved the numbers.
As they matured we harvested extra Toms, I staggered them to get a solid idea on timeline for filling out a nice bird. At 20 weeks we processed one that was about 12lbs, it obviously had not filled out the breast. The Midget White Turkey (MWT) is a broad breasted breed, essentially a miniature of the ones purchased in the store only the mature between 10 and 18 lbs (Hens/Toms) instead of 20 to 30lbs.
At 20 weeks the breast was certainly filling in and processed out at 14lbs. I was going to do another at 24 weeks but a few got out and my dog helped herself to one of them, cant say as I blame her as they are quite tasty
This left me with 2 Toms to process and 2 to keep and I had promised a xMas bird to a friend and of course we needed one for ourselves. so the 24 week slot got passed up.
I processed 2 at 28 weeks (7 months) and the difference over those last two months was pretty huge. I still dont know what the 24 week mark will look like but will find out this year. With 4 new incubators we are keeping them going with chicks hatching, the goal is to provide us with plenty to butcher plus expand on the flock for next year along with selling chicks and later breeding trios and ready to butcher or oven ready birds. If I can earn enough to cover the food cost of the flock for the year then it will be easy to keep raising these for ourselves and others.
These last birds processed at 28 weeks had large full breast and more importantly had built some really nice fat on them. They were truly delicious Turkeys and sold me on them for the food side of the equation.
The other side was the sustainability, would they breed so we could hatch chicks here unlike the xCross Chickens that you cannot breed on your own. That was answered this year as our 8 Hens began laying. It was a month or so into the laying before the Toms figured things out and we began to see the indication of being fertile in the eggs.
That puffed colorful fatty stuff and hanging Snood on the Tom are remarkable. He will puff himself up and then all of that goes away, color and all. That 6" long hanging Snood will become an inch long sticking up off the top of his head, all the red and blue will fade and waves of whatever those gobs are hanging on his neck will shrink back leaving one to wonder how the hell do they do that and in the span of maybe half an hour to boot.
Not sure if these things are Dinosaurs or Octopuses.
I began setting eggs every week to 10 days and we are currently on our second batch of hatching. have had some small issues with humidity control we are working out so our hatch rate is lower than we would like to see but the fertility rate was very high so optimistic is the word.
