Our turkey hatched her eggs today.

[helomech]

Helo, I've heard that turkeys and geese are hard to raise, but having no experience I don't know. Thanks for your experience! It keeps me from making mistakes!

If they laid more eggs it would be worth it, but only twice a year it isn't. Feeding them for a full year to get maybe 20 eggs is just not worth it.

[Sniper-T]

But how much meat does those 20 eggs translate into?

[helomech]

If they all make it to slaughter age, my guess would be about 5lbs of meat each, maybe a bit more. But I can get over 300 ducks in the same time frame with only one breeding pair. And chickens I can get also get at lest 300 a year off one breeding pair. And with ducks you can slaughter them at about 2 months. They grow very fast.

[4suchatimeasthis]

Very interesting, Helomech, I didn't realize ducks grew that fast!

I remember we raised a dozen or so turkeys when I was a kid. My parents faithfully got a set of 50 chicks every spring from the local co-op, raised to butcher, separate from our laying hens. One year just to try it I guess, they got some turkeys too. I will say this, I never heard my Dad swear (very pious, devout man) except at those turkeys. They followed him everywhere, they even tried to get into the car with him. I think they loved him, as crazy as that sounds. And they crapped all over his tractor, and all over the front porch. Looking back I couldn't say why Mom and Dad didn't have the turkeys in a pen, the chickens had a large (probably 30'x30' fenced in area) run to be in. But the turkeys roamed free.

I love the flavor of turkey, I prefer it to chicken. And I have thought about buying chicks and raising them for meat. But we have a large number of wild turkeys in this area as well, I guess we could let Mother Nature raise them.....

[helomech]

Very interesting, Helomech, I didn't realize ducks grew that fast!

I remember we raised a dozen or so turkeys when I was a kid. My parents faithfully got a set of 50 chicks every spring from the local co-op, raised to butcher, separate from our laying hens. One year just to try it I guess, they got some turkeys too. I will say this, I never heard my Dad swear (very pious, devout man) except at those turkeys. They followed him everywhere, they even tried to get into the car with him. I think they loved him, as crazy as that sounds. And they crapped all over his tractor, and all over the front porch. Looking back I couldn't say why Mom and Dad didn't have the turkeys in a pen, the chickens had a large (probably 30'x30' fenced in area) run to be in. But the turkeys roamed free.

I love the flavor of turkey, I prefer it to chicken. And I have thought about buying chicks and raising them for meat. But we have a large number of wild turkeys in this area as well, I guess we could let Mother Nature raise them.....

Turkeys are very expensive now. One young chick will cost you at least 15 dollars. I think I actually like the flavor of the duck over all of them. Goose is better than turkey IMO. Also turkey has to be the hardest animal to process. They are some tough critters.

[4suchatimeasthis]

Wow, dang, that is expensive! That is nuts, considering what you can buy them for, whole frozen.

I only had duck once, my uncle had shot one and brought it over....it was fishy and dirty tasting. I would rather eat bear, and that's saying something! But, perhapes raised duck, with a more "tame" diet would not taste as bad.

Now, Chinese duck sauce, that I like

[helomech]

Wow, dang, that is expensive! That is nuts, considering what you can buy them for, whole frozen.

I only had duck once, my uncle had shot one and brought it over....it was fishy and dirty tasting. I would rather eat bear, and that's saying something! But, perhapes raised duck, with a more "tame" diet would not taste as bad.

Now, Chinese duck sauce, that I like

A 1 year old tom is about 60 dollars around here, and a hen is a little more.

I don't like wild duck either, but tame duck is amazing. So much flavor.