Hybrid Turkeys?

[Lynnkay]

We have six pure white turkeys and were wondering if they are hybrids? We are in the process of butchering some of them, maybe all of them if they're hybrids. They are not Royal Palms, as we've had them before. Just thought someone here might know if it would be worth the effort to leave a 'pair' (if we can figure out if there's a hen) and see if perhaps they will reproduce. If they are hybrids, of course, we will 'process' the remaining six, all of them. ;)

[bee_pipes]

Are they huge, ponderous birds? If so, you probably have a white broad breasted. Those are real feed eating machines and incapable of breeding without human assistance.

We have royal palms. They are some kind of mutt, the bloodline got muddied sopmewhere along the line, but they are small birds (for turkeys). Even so, they eat a lot of feed. We kept them as a breeding pair from last year. Keeping turkeys for breeding is not that practical, we do it more out of enjoyment of having the turkeys around. They are entertaining, and they do provide eggs and more turkeys, but not in numbers like the chickens do.

If you have broad breasteds, I'd look at another breed. If not, see what you get from hatching their eggs. Try to breed a tom and a hen with the traits you want.

Here's a page with turkey pictures:
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/category/turkeys.html

Regards,
Pat

[Deberosa]

Yeah, I have three broad breasted white turkeys that I got as chicks in May - they are now almost three feet tall! They push right in for the pigs for some pig feed!

I also have heritage turkeys and got a whole mix just this last weekend. I have three red bourbon hens, my toms died last winter but the hens have been raising chicken chicks! I have them free ranging with the dark cornish chickens. The new ones are royal palm, blue slate, black spanish and naragansette and one wild turkey and one white turkey that is heritage but came out white!

The three hybrids are going into the freezer and some of the others will go there too, I hope to get a few Tom's out of the batch to keep producing more each year. The brush is all fenced and guarded by my dog so no predator problems fortunately. Perfect for free range birds!

[Lynnkay]

Thanks to you both. Your posts have helped us make the decision to go ahead and butcher all the turkeys rather than holding back a couple hoping for reproduction.

You are right, these are 'big' eaters and sort of aggressive at feeding time, so it will be kind of nice to have them in the freezer instead of in the hen house waiting to pounce every time I go out there with a bucket of feed. ::)