We have experienced an unprecedented but pleasant surprise blessing this year!
We are back at it hatching and growing turkeys. But at first it seemed a little risky, becasue we only had 2 breeders left from previous years, one tom and one hen. A literal Adam and Eve situation! Nevertheless, we set them up in January with lights and a nice breeding area and nesting box, praying for the best. Well here are are in late march with amazing results!
Thus far, we have 100% fertility rate, 100% hatch rate and 100% survival rate!
Let me stress that this RARELY happens! Usually each of those is only at about 80% (80% are fertile, 80% of those hatch and 80% of those survive).
What did we do? Not much… except two major points:
This Tom and Hen are the absolute best genetics for a central texas farm. How do I know that? becasue they have survived harsh winters and summers and come out strong. They have survived lean times and stressful times. So genetically these two are as good as it gets. By breeding them together we get excellent poults with top notch genetics.
The other thing we did was switch to incubators from Hatching Time. The old Brinsea incubators we had from the Oregon operation finally got to the end of their life and we replaced them. The Hatching time incubators have pros and cons, but what I have noticed is excellent temp and humidity control comparatively.
How much these affecting things, its hard to say. Bottom line is, God has blessed us with a new flock of excellent genetics to go forward.
We will not be selling turkeys this year, but next year, if all goes well, we will have plenty of eggs, poults, and maybe even processed turkeys for Thanksgiving!
