Well it is round 2 here at Paradise Acres!  Round 1 consisted of receiving our chickens and building a coop for them to hang out in.  Round 2 as I have started to call it started with receiving our turkeys in the mail.  I have to give the Rincón Post Office credit here, they have always gotten us our birds in a timely manner and we appreciate it.  With this particular delivery we even received a Facebook message from the post master letting us know that the turkeys were here!

 Poults in a Box

Round 1 involved a lot of setup work as far as clearing a place to put the coop, then moving all of the wood piece by piece from the old bathroom to the new location.  Hey, at least it wasn’t an uphill move!  Round 1 also involved a learning curve from our previous 6 chickens from our backyard flock to 25 here on our homestead.  Having that many more chicks presented a space problem that occurred VERY quickly, more so than with just 6.  We thought that having the bathtub would be good enough for them for a while which in hindsight wasn’t big enough for much more than a week.

Having 15 turkeys is going to be an extension on that.  The breed of turkey we got, Royal Palm Turkeys, are at least not as large as the traditional breed of turkeys that are raised for meat production.  These guys will only get to 10-12 pounds in size.  They are one of the only breeds that are not selected primarily for meat production, though they will make a fine meal when that time comes. These are heritage breeds meaning they can reproduce on their own and are not the commercial standard that just sits around and eats all day long. They are active and beautiful birds.

The poults so far have been about the same as chicks.  Some of the differences we have noticed is that they have already had a tendency to imprint on us.  When we walk around and a poult is out with us it will happily follow us around.  We have heard this is a turkey trait in general.  It’s cute.  The poults also seem to be just a bit more chill than chicks are.  They aren’t as frantic.  They are pretty amusing to watch.  The males (we think) already poof up and try to act tough.  As poults they look a lot like chicks except for the little unicorn horn above their beak. They also all huddle in a corner when it is time to sleep.  Just a big ball.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Playing in the Yard

Round 1 with the chickens also taught us about hawks.  The hawks here are becoming a nuisance to what we are trying to accomplish.  A hawk took one of our polish hens and attacked another chick that had escaped.  Yesterday when Cassie and I came down to work in the yard I saw a hawk fly from the coop to a tree elsewhere on the property, I was like……”WTF”.   That is when I noticed another hawk sitting on the ground in the middle of our path.  I am thinking that we may need to introduce another animal into our plan that will protect the chickens and turkeys or at the very least just scare/chase the hawks.  Not sure if this would be a dog or if the roosters and Toms will be able to handle that when they get to full size.  I mean seriously, the hawks were trying to get at the chickens that are INSIDE the coop!  I am glad I made it super secure.

Grow Rooster! GROW!

We only let the chickens range when we are present and watching.  I tried to let them out once when I was just in the yard working, but a hawk made an attempt at them so we had to change our strategy so that we are watching them closely.  We have seen as many as 4 hawks in the sky above our property.  Wikipedia states that they rarely prey on standard sized chickens, I have my doubts about that.  I have a feeling they will always be there and always be making attempts.  Because of that our turkeys will be under lock and key until they reach a good size.  The toms should make for good protection when they are big enough as well as the roosters.