A History of Fun and Worthwhile Homegrown Turkeys and How to Hunt them in the Wild

by Herman Beck-Chenoweth, J. R. Smyth Jr. and B.C. Wentworth

Turkeys are so fascinating, fast and large that Benjamin Franklin suggested that the turkey would be suitable as our national bird. "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country," Franklin wrote. "He is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."

History of the Turkey

WATT Publishing - Heritage turkey
breeds, such as these Bourbon Reds,
are an excellent choice for the homestead.

As early as A.D. 600, the people living in the area now known as the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico domesticated turkeys. They were an important source of meat. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both wrote how turkeys were driven into the fields to feast on tobacco hornworms.

After the tobacco harvest concluded, the turkeys would be penned and fattened for the upcoming holiday feasts. Even if you aren’t growing tobacco, turkeys are a great help in controlling nuisance insects. They are especially fond of grasshoppers, flies and other common summer pests.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, turkey production became specialized. In 1874, five varieties of "standard" turkeys were named in the American Poultry Association’s Standard of Perfection: Bronze, Narragansett, White Holland, Black and Slate.

By the 1920s, the Bronze, the largest variety, had garnered the attention of breeders who stressed characteristics that included body size and breast width. By the early 1940s, nearly all varieties in the commercial marketplace had been replaced by the Bronze.

Later, during the 1950s, turkey breeders became more interested on increasing the growth rate in white-feathered birds. The color of the feather dictates the color of the fluid inside a feather, so dark turkeys have dark fluid while white birds have whitish fluid.

During plucking, the tasteless fluid leaks out and stains the skin. Consumers preferred white dressed turkeys because they appeared to be cleaner. By the 1970s, the Large White turkey ruled the marketplace, and confinement rearing had become the accepted norm. These huge, 40- to 65-pound birds cannot breed by themselves, so artificial insemination is used. Today, five companies control more than 50 percent of the market: Jennie-O Foods, Cargill, Butterball Turkey Co., Wampler Foods Inc. and Carolina Turkeys.

Male turkeys are raised exclusively in confinement houses, containing as many as 10,000 birds each. Females are smaller and slower growing and are usually killed at a young age and used as livestock feed. Because of the crowded conditions, commercial birds are frequently fed antibiotics to prevent disease. Territorial toms are also given tranquilizers to keep them from fighting. These birds are fed high levels of protein because they’ve been bred to grow unnaturally fast. And more recently there’s even a "canolaball" turkey that has been injected with fats, stock and flavor enhancers to be self-basting as the meat cooks.

History of Midget White Turkey

Herman Beck-Chenoweth - Turkeys love
 to be up high, so they will congregate anywhere
they can find a nice high perch.
It's cute, but manure accumulation
 can become a problem.

Early in the 1960s, there was an interest in producing miniature versions (6 to 9 pounds) of the large white and bronze turkeys. These efforts failed due to immature fleshing and finish. The only turkey broilers in this weight range were the Beltsville whites.

The Beltsville whites were known for excellent reproductive abilities but their poor fleshing and body conformation were not popular with consumers. A few miniature turkey lines were developed, all suffering from poor reproductive performance. Many of these were developed from crossing broad-breasted large stocks with the Beltsville whites, with subsequent selection for smaller size.

At the University of Massachusetts, J. R. Smyth Jr. crossed a line of broad-breasted whites with a royal palm turkey he had obtained from Dr. Edward Buss of Pennsylvania State University. The royal palms, a small exhibition strain, possessed reasonably good breast fleshing. Beginning with the first generation crossbreds, Smyth selected on an individual bird basis for smaller size, good breast fleshing and total balance.

After three generations, unforeseen circumstances required Smyth to get rid of his miniatures. Reluctant to dispose of them, he gave the birds to a farm worker who had contacts with poultry exhibition breeders. The farm worker then swapped them for some show bantams to a breeder in Wisconsin. When Smyth gave them up, they were showing palm, silver bronze and white plumage patterns.

In 1971, B.C. Wentworth was contacted by an avian fancier in Wisconsin. He had two toms and four hens from a very small line, which he was unable to keep. When Wentworth picked up these birds, he found they had wing bands with numbers and the abbreviation "U of Mass." These were the midget white turkeys Smyth had been developing earlier.

During 1972, these small turkeys were photostimulated (14 hours of light; 10 hours of darkness) to induce egg-laying. Wentworth artificially mated these Midget whites. In March, tom "A" was mated with two hens and tom "B" was mated with two other hens. The eggs were all set and poults from this April hatch were pedigreed. In April, the two toms were mated with the two opposite hens. These eggs were collected in May and the following hatch was gathered in June. The poults from the second hatch were pedigreed. The poults resulting from the second mating might not have been an accurate pedigree, because the May eggs might have been fertilized by the male from March.

Wentworth followed a rigorous pedigree approach to develop his flock of Midget white turkeys annually with every effort to avoid further inbreeding. The white color was fixed and he continued to improve fleshing over time. In the late 1970s, an embryonic lethal gene was expressed but over the next three years, Wentworth was successful and purged the stock carrying this unwanted gene.

Since the mid ’70s, selection was maintained to fix a tom body weight to around 13 pounds and hens to around 8 pounds. In every third year, in addition to body weight, breast meat volume was chosen as a selection index. Annually, Wentworth selected for fertility, higher egg production, and hatchability. The hatchability averaged around 80 percent when the flock was dispersed. The originally obtained stock did not lay well, averaging about 30 to 40 eggs during a breeding season.

Currently, midgets lay 60 to 80 eggs annually. The large eggs appear similar to eggs laid by the large broad-breasted lines of turkeys, weighing 3 to 5 grams less. The midget white turkey’s appearance is that of a miniature version of the large commercial white line, sporting a very broad breast. Commercially, this is not an economically important meat bird. Wentworth estimates the feed conversion is approximately 4 pounds of feed per one pound of weight gain.

For the record, the midget white turkeys have no direct genetic relationship to the Beltsville white turkey.

Illustration (color, woodcut plate) by Harry Cimino 

Homegrown Turkeys are Fun and Worthwhile

Turkeys first came to our southern Ohio Locust Grove Farm in 1991. After a year of living without animals I proclaimed, "Fences or not, I am going to get some livestock." My wife, Linda, said to do what I wanted, but to count her out as she was busy.

One month later, my baby chicks arrived – and I knew as soon as she looked at those tiny baby birds that I was out of the chicken picture. I then ordered some day-old turkey poults and began my life with these beautiful, friendly birds of various colors.

After I first tasted the flavorful, homegrown roast turkey, I knew I would never return to bland commercial birds again.

Raising friendly, handsome turkeys for family use is both fun and worthwhile. If you raise them to eat, you’ll enjoy a much more flavorful turkey than supermarket turkeys.

Heritage poultry specialist Glenn Drowns of Sand Hill Preservation Center in Calamus, Iowa, explains the Traditional Bronze and White Holland varieties are great for small flocks under 20, and that Narragansetts and Bourbon Reds are beautiful, medium-size birds suited for foraging and pest control. I recommend the white-and-black Royal Palm for those desiring a smaller turkey.

Frank Reese, a turkey aficionado and breeder from Good Shepherd Ranch in Lindsborg, Kansas, suggests the Standard Bronze and White Hollands for meat production. He says that his Sadie Lloyd strain of Bourbon Reds is an excellent all-around choice – there’s no need to worry that the chicks won’t be looked after, as they mother extremely well. According to Reese, other good "setters" include the Black Spanish and small strains of the Narragansett.

If you are looking to raise turkeys to sell, my favorite is a medium-size strain of the Broad Breasted Bronze. This variety only became available several years ago from private breeders. This fast-growing modern bird has the abundance of breast meat that U.S. consumers think is ideal. A Broad Breasted Bronze traditionally has two to four times the amount of breast meat that a wild turkey does.

A Bronze reaches an approximate dressed weight of 16 to 25 pounds in around 24 weeks. A heritage bird could take up to two years to reach this weight, and some never will. This time period is significant because turkeys don’t add fat until the 22nd week. Fat is where most of the flavor is, so a good layer under the skin helps to self-baste the bird as it cooks.

Herman Beck-Chenoweth - A wading pool with a
heat lamp makes the perfect first home for your poults.

The easiest way to get started with turkeys is to buy day-old turkeys (called poults) in the spring. Before they arrive, set up a brooder. At Locust Grove Farm, we brood our poults in a children’s plastic wading pool. We line it with approximately 1 inch of wood shavings and hang a couple infrared heat lamps to keep the birds warm. Warmth and dryness are of the utmost importance to baby birds.

The round pool design helps to keep the birds from piling on top of each other in a corner. The floor level temperaturefor the first week should be 90 to 100 degrees; after the first week, raise the lamps to reduce the temperature by 5 degrees weekly.

One feeder and waterer will suffice for every 25 birds. We start our turkeys on Purina Game Bird Starter, containing 30 percent protein. After a week, remove the pool and offer the birds a larger area to roam; for the next three weeks, an 8-by-8 space will work well. Your birds will begin perching on top of the waterer or on window sills: They’re signaling that they’re ready to roost. You’ll then want to mount a 1- or 2-inch round branch 1 foot off the floor.

Birds 6 weeks and older can start to go outside for a while each day when temperatures reach 75 degrees. When rainy and cold, keep them inside. By eight weeks, your birds can go on pasture. If you allow your birds free access to the outdoors, they might not want to come in at night until you make them.

Herman Beck-Chenoweth - Movable roots will keep
the pen sanitary and your turkeys safe and content.

Another plan is to create a movable roost and have your turkeys live outside on range, in a large, fenced pen. Range is a short-grass pasture (4- to 6-inches long), and turkeys do fine on any range; I prefer the mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and medium red clover. If possible, select a site without trees. Turkeys will fly into trees, and when the trees are inside your pen, manure will build up under them.

Treat your large, intelligent birds as humanely as possible. Provide enough space, places to dust bathe and roosts to fly up to at night. A dozen turkeys can be supported nicely in a yard or fenced pen of one-eighth acre (75 feet by 75 feet). Use woven-wire field fence, such as 1047-12-11, to keep predators away from your birds. If you don’t want a permanent fence, partially drive in some metal T-posts or use electric poultry netting.

Keep your birds on fresh range all the time by weekly moving the portable roost to clean ground. You can also relocate the feeder and waterer daily to prevent the surrounding area from becoming trampled or too heavily manured. Mow to keep the grass 4- to 6-inches long.

WATT Publishing - Narragansett turkeys
 are attractive, and some strains are
 particularly good at hatching eggs.

Save chore time by connecting a 4-foot-long automatic waterer to your homestead water supply. You could install a 5- to 8-gallon poultry fountain instead, but you’d have to carry 2 gallons of water daily for every twelve mature turkeys. A range feeder will hold about 100 pounds of feed and it takes 3.25 pounds of feed to produce 1 pound of live turkey weight. Your feed consumption will rise as your birds grow and reach maturity.

Turkeys love to be in the company of people. Visit your turkeys at least twice a day, as an old farm book I have says that turkeys can die from loneliness. Be careful as they may follow you into the house for company.

As fall approaches, if you haven’t already, decide if your turkeys are pets or dinner. Luckily, by raising heritage breeds, you can have your turkey and eat it, too. If you wish for a perpetual breeding flock of heritage birds, harvest some of the toms, maintaining a ratio of one tom to 10 hens. Either offer your extras for sale or slaughter them.

In the spring, your birds can mate to expand the flock – and you can sell turkey poults or trios (a tom and two hens). Encourage others to join a growing network of turkey lovers who are protecting the biological diversity of this interesting, useful bird – and the flavor and purity of holiday dinners.

Watching and Hunting Wild Turkeys A Challenging Task

National Wild Turkey Federation - To locate
 wild turkeys, try to find their food source.

Ask anyone who’s seen them, wild turkeys are fascinating to watch and challenging to hunt or photograph. The procedure for both activities is the same, only the tools needed are different. It’s not easy to find these wary birds. Start by looking for what turkeys themselves look for: open woodlands or forests with scattered natural or artificial clearings.

Whether you are hunting or watching, a good pair of 10x50 binoculars is necessary. Don’t scrimp: A nice pair is worth its weight in gold because your best observation time for turkeys is near dusk or dawn. One key to locating turkeys is finding their food source. During the spring and summer, grasses and insects are abundant, and turkeys can normally be found at forest edges and in open pastures or meadows. As it gets closer to fall, you can find turkeys in the woods eating wild grapes, nuts and even dogwood berries.

If you have no wild turkeys on your own land, a good plan includes scouting out an area by vehicle. If it’s private land, get permission from the landowner before scouting. When you find an area containing turkeys, quietly sneak into the area early in the evening and listen for turkeys going to roost: Turkeys prefer the tallest trees and ridges. Listen carefully for the sound of wings beating the air and hens cackling. You might also hear a gentle assembly call made by the older hens. Once you have decided on a comfortable location, remain very still and, most importantly, quiet. For more information on wild turkeys:

National Wild Turkey Federation
P.O. Box 530
Edgefield, SC 29824-0530
800-843-6983, www.NWTF.org

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More Lace Eggs!

by Jennifer Sartell

I'm glad to see that so many of you are enjoying my post Turn Eggs Into Lace! In response to the enthusiasm you've shown in the form of e-mails, comments on my Facebook Page and here on Community Chickens, I thought I would do a follow up blog showing some more examples, and a few tips I've learned after doing several eggs.

I also thought a video of the process might be fun! In the video, I only show one side being carved to save time, but the whole egg can be "laced".


As you can see, towards the end of the video, I give each egg a light rub with a cotton pad and a drop of olive oil. It gives the egg a pretty sheen, and removes any pencil marks I may have made in the beginning.


I especially like the way the French Black Copper Maran eggs turned out. The dark shell really helps the design to pop.

I've learned that after a few days, the inner film of the eggshell that blocks some of the holes will dry out and recede, leaving the egg even more lace-like.

I want to thank reader Diane Naylor for sharing a spectacular link to some gorgeous carved eggs that put my simple dotted ones to shame! Check out these beauties at Profitable Hobbies. For those of you who really want to get serious, a dental drill is the way to go. The price is a bit steep, but the results are amazing! As Diane explains, a dental drill "has less torque" and allows for finer detail.

With the Dremel, I am sort of limited to dots, as the rotary disks "grab" the egg shell if I try to do continuous lines. This usually results in a crack.

I've had so much fun thinking up designs and creating these unique decorations! I hope you're inspired to give it a try this Easter! If you do make some beautiful eggs, we'd love to see them! Feel free to share photos on the Community Chickens Facebook page!

To see more farming fun, visit my blog at http://www.ironoakfarm.blogspot.com/

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jennifer burcke

by Jennifer Burcke

I’m still trying to recover from the disappointment of my failed natural Easter egg experiment. I had been counting on using these unique and beautifully colored hard-boiled eggs to decorate our Easter table at 1840 Farm. That was, until I removed the eggs from their naturally colored liquids and found dreary, gloomy eggs staring back at me.

Those eggs made a fine egg salad for lunch, but were not going to make a fine centerpiece for our Easter table. It was time for me to get creative and come up with something fast. I knew that I could call in other Easter items for decorating. Bunnies and carrots are lovely and speak to my love of spring and gardening as well as my affection for our French Angora rabbit, Herbert Menninger. For this chicken keeper, only an egg would do to announce that Easter and spring had finally arrived at 1840 Farm.

When all else fails, I find that chocolate almost always brings beauty to the table, along with happiness to everyone gathered there. I considered making a chocolate nest for the table that could be filled with candy and serve as our centerpiece. Then I thought about making individual little nests to use as place cards on our table. Instead of making a centerpiece that would have to be broken and divided into individual portions, I could just make one small portion for each guest at our table. Now I was on to something. It was time to get out the chocolate.

I started out with the semi-sweet chocolate first. I broke the chocolate into squares and placed it in a microwave-safe bowl. I heated the chocolate for 30 seconds, stirred the slightly melted chocolate, and then finished melting them with another 20 seconds in the microwave. The chocolate was melted and smooth. Microwave ovens vary greatly, so you might find that you need to adjust the time needed to melt the chocolate completely. Use 30-second increments, stirring after each stint in the microwave to ensure that the chocolate doesn't scorch. Alternately, you could melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water or a traditional double boiler.

Once the chocolate was melted, I prepared my bowls to be used as the shape of the nests. I happened to have a set of silicone miniature pinch bowls that were just the size I was looking for. They are inexpensive and available at kitchen stores or the kitchen aisle of my local superstore. You could use any size flexible bowl or line a rigid bowl with plastic wrap in order to allow you to remove the chocolate in one piece once it has hardened.

Using a spoon, I placed about one tablespoon of the melted chocolate in the pinch bowl and slowly swirled the bowl to coat. I then turned the bowl upside down over the container of melted chocolate and allowed some of it to drip back down into the bowl. I didn’t want the excess chocolate to gather at the bottom of my nest as it was setting up. Removing the extra chocolate left me with a nest, with the concave bottom surface I was looking for.

After preparing a few semi-sweet nests, I placed the bowls in the freezer to set up. After a few short minutes, the chocolate had hardened and I added another thin layer of melted chocolate before using chocolate sprinkles to coat the inside of one nest. It looked good enough, but wasn’t quite as nest-like as I had hoped. I added a few tablespoons of shredded, sweetened coconut to the remaining melted chocolate and stirred until the coconut was completely covered and the mixture was slightly dry. I spooned the chocolate-covered coconut into the other chocolate nest and pressed it into shape using my finger. It was very easy to make just the shape I was looking for by modeling the coconut into the shape of a nest. I placed the two bowls back in the freezer to allow the chocolate to chill.

Next, I decided to try a white chocolate version of the coconut nest. My son prefers white chocolate to dark, and I knew that he would love to have a little white chocolate nest with candy eggs marking his place at our Easter table. I followed the same procedure as before to melt the chocolate and apply the initial coating of chocolate to the bowl. As the white chocolate layer chilled in the freezer, I added coconut to the remaining melted white chocolate until I had a fully coated mixture that was dry enough to resemble hay. Again, I spooned the coconut into the bowl and pressed it into shape with my fingers before giving all four nests a final chill in the freezer.

While I cleaned up my chocolate mess and predictably found myself licking the spoons clean, I wondered if they would come out of the bowls cleanly. Each year, I make homemade Easter bunnies for my children, and I was hoping that years of experience doing so would play in my favor. I also chill those chocolates in the freezer and find that doing so results in a hardened chocolate that shrinks away from its mold just enough to allow me to remove it in one piece. I was keeping my fingers crossed that these nests would do the same.

I removed the four nests from the freezer and set about removing the chocolate from their bowl molds. These nests hadn’t shrunk as much as our molded chocolates do, but they were easy to remove given the flexibility of the silicone bowls. All four of them came free without breaking and also had a beautifully smooth exterior, which was just what I was hoping for. Finally, a 2012 Easter project involving eggs that was a beautiful and delicious way to decorate the Easter table at 1840 Farm!

I set all four nests on a plate and placed three candy-coated chocolate eggs in each. They were remarkably nestlike in appearance, with just enough whimsy to appeal to my children when they come to the Easter table. It seemed like the perfect way to welcome our guests to the table at 1840 Farm on Easter Sunday.

I preferred the appearance of the coconut version, but the sprinkle variety will be sure to make an appearance on the table as well. At least one person at our table doesn’t care for coconut, so I’ll be proud to serve him a nest decorated with sprinkles. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see that his little chocolate treat is coconut free.

Using a small piece of scrapbook paper, I cut a little flag and printed my name on it before applying a small amount of glue from a gluestick and attaching it to a toothpick. Once I had inserted it into the nest, I was even happier with the result. I was fairly certain that my children would be happy with it as well. They confirmed my suspicion moments later when they both had reason to walk through the kitchen. My daughter thought they were adorable. My son thought they looked like a great snack and wanted to know if he could eat one of the white chocolate nests immediately. This kitchen experiment was officially a success.

Now I’m off to finish cleaning up the melted chocolate that remains on the kitchen counter. The sprinkles and coconut will be put away until Saturday, when I will begin creating chocolate nests for our Easter Sunday celebration. I will look forward to seeing the little nests atop each plate.

They will serve as another reminder of how important both spring and our hens’ beautiful eggs are to the three generations living here at 1840 Farm. Until then, it looks like my son is in luck. There are four little chocolate nests in the kitchen just waiting for someone to eat them.

In a few short weeks, the new chicks will be arriving at 1840 Farm. To make sure that you don't miss any of the excitement, giveaways or unending supply of cute photos of baby chicks during the Year in the Life at 1840 Farm series, follow us on Facebook to read the daily news from the coop at 1840 Farm.

You're always welcome at 1840 Farm. Visit our blog at www.1840farm.wordpress.com.

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as;ldjl;asdjkf

by Rebecca Nickols

It is officially spring now, but for southern Missouri the weather has been unseasonably warm for months. We've had one of the warmest winters on record and during the last several weeks the temperature has averaged in the 70s and 80s°F. (I hope we won't be zapped by an April or May freeze.)

Spring is a beautiful season in the Ozarks. The dogwoods, redbuds and lilacs are now in full bloom and we all have a bad case of spring fever (chickens included).








The hens have enjoyed the shade of their favorite resting spot under a large forsythia shrub and have been diligently foraging for emerging grubs.

The weeds in the garden beds are also thriving in the unusually warm weather, and I've put the chickens to work ... taking advantage of their chemical-free weeding skills! I constructed a fence around my raspberry bed and positioned the chicken tractor at one end. The girls are scratching up the soil, eating weeds and depositing a little fertilizer.

Each spring I like to plant something unusual in the garden. Last year it was egg-shaped gourds.

I envisioned the entire chain-link chicken run covered with these ornamental gourds, but that dream was squashed (literally). I was also hoping that this spring I would have a basketful of egg gourds to decorate for Easter, but the squash bugs invaded my vines and destroyed most of the gourds. Here's an interesting fact that I learned: My chickens detest squash bugs.









At least they love Japanese beetles, and I do have a bounty of real eggs to share with friends!

To see what else is happening on our Southwest Missouri property, visit ...the garden-roof coop.

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