Category: agrarianism (Page 1 of 20)

The Lord granted 3 more turkey chicks to be hatched out this 2025, I believe from different hens, but we had no room for a turkey mommy in the summer kitchen. And then, we were hoping a chicken mommy would hatch some out, and that we could blend the turklets in with her, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

But until then, we had a little scissor-beak chicken in a cage in there, so that little one ended up being surrogate mommy/cousin to the turklets. Sadly, one didn’t make it, but “Beaky” (as I called it) ended up turklet-sitting for a while.

But then, a chicken hen did hatch out some, so we moved her and her 3 chicks and her eggs into the summer kitchen. And then I tried putting the turklets in with her, and it looked great at first, but then I saw her pecking at one, so it was back to Beaky.

Time continued, and she hatched out 6 more, although sadly again, one of them didn’t make it.

So today, we still have the 2 turklets and 8 chicken chicks running around in there!

On a sad note, Beaky also didn’t make it. 🙁 Not sure what happened.

But now, here’s the video of it all over time:

On a final note: Some might have culled Beaky immediately because of its beak, and I understand that because it would always need a special situation to survive and probably wouldn’t normally be considered “productive.” Still, to me there’s always hope. 🙂 And sometimes things do end up not like they are perceived at first, and Beaky, despite it all, ended up serving a valuable purpose in its short little time alive. And we are thankful for God using it to contribute to our little homestead. (Gives me hope for myself, maybe someday…)

Thank you Beaky!

As always, we thank God for His continued provisions!

— David

There was a chicken mommy in the barn sitting and sitting and sitting, and never hatched out anything. 🙁

But, other hens did, and so to reward the first mommy for her efforts, we put her in the summer kitchen with all the new chicks that followed, which did occur over time. 🙂

And that included another turkey chick too! We didn’t have any place to put it with its mom, so we put it in with the chicken hen.

And first hen raised them, and did a fine job!

Here’s their video, a little later in the process, where, since the young were all different sizes, we eventually moved the larger ones into the main turkey run to give them more room (apologies for the blurriness of the first part — can’t really go and re-do it now 🙂 ):

We are grateful again to the Lord for His continued provisions this 2025!

— David

It started with a chicken mommy hatching out some turkey chicks. Since turkey hatchings were more rare for us some years ago, we actually purposely tried that, since chickens were better sitters, and there were more of them. Well, I believe lots of them died when we tried that, and we thought perhaps the Lord was chastising us for trying to force something in a way that He hadn’t set up.

But, this year, He seemed to take things that way, and so we let it ride, with the idea that, we put that hen and her turklets (ie. like chicklets for turkeys :D) in the summer kitchen, and if a turkey mommy hatched some out, we’d swap her in with them.

We put that first mommy in the summer kitchen. Another chicken mommy hatched out turkey chicks, so we put them in there. I thought we had tried the two chicken mommies in there, but if I remember right, that didn’t work out too well, so we stuck with the first one.

Then, a turkey hen did hatch out some turkey chicks, and so we did swap her in.

And then, it all broke loose! Chicken mommies, turkey mommies, hatching out every which way, all kinds of turkey and chicken chicks, and so, we just kept shuttling them into the summer kitchen with the rest of them.

One day, I had left one of the storm door open and the screen-ish door loose, and I scared that turkey hen in the summer kitchen enough to where she pushed her way out, and so, that was the end of mommies for all the young in there.

But, they kept growing, and we kept adding. And graciously only a few died along the way.

Just recently, the biggest ones were big enough to start shuttling into the barn at night for them to begin their lives outside.

And now, here’s a video of all those collecting and shuttling chicks into the summer kitchen. I know it’s long, but I wanted to document every one because to us, every one is a gift from God. Still, the avalanche starts around 6 minutes in, and then the last 3 minutes is the final scene of them at the point where it was time to start moving the largest of them into the barn:

We thank the Lord for His provisions — He really was extra gracious with them all!

— David