And when you've got a shed full of hens and stags and you get back from a visit to the dentist to find one dead in the run at nearly 12 weeks becuase the other little b*****s hae pekced it to death, it'll make you wish you'd never seen a turkey in your life!!!!!
Grrrrrrrr. We hadn't been out long, got home, told Brian to go look make sure everything was okay while I fixed a sandwich. then I went out ito the garden and the turkeys in the run were making a funny noise, a bit like they ere trying to sooth someone who wasn't well, you know what I mean?
So I looked over the run and several were crowding round one that was on the ground. As I got nearer, I could see she was dead. They'd been pecking her ear and made the earhole very large, and she'd pushed her head through the fence to get it away from them, but because she was weak, they started on her thigh. Poor thing. We've put her in a black sack in the freezer, as we met a couple on sunday who have a Harris Hawk, and they said if we get any dead birds, they'd love it for the hawk and they are getting an eagle owl soon too! so that sorts my deadstock problem out.
It's strange though, we know the only reason it died was because of the pecking, but Brian won't let me cook it, even though it was a decent size! Funny man!!!
Turkeys are not quite as easy to rear as chicks. They have to be kept at 37C for the first week, whereas chicks are 32C and it only needs a slight fluctuation in temperature to kill them. I didn't know this at first, and we did lose 8 in the first couple of weeks, but once they are older, they can take much colder weather than chickens do.