Leaving off some time after our first 2023 turkey chicks blog post, we thought we’d catch you up with the next update. The Lord has continued to be gracious in granting quite a few more turkey chicks, having them hatch them out in the barn so we can collect them and get them into the summer kitchen/brooder barn.
And here’s a video of those adventures!
As always, we are grateful to God for His provisions, and pray for the continued health of the turkeys and all our animals, as He might grant!
The Lord has graciously begun to grant new turkey chicks this 2023! We’ve been “collecting” them and putting them in the summer kitchen (which is really just a brooder barn) as they’ve been hatching in the barn, and have rotated a couple of mommies. It’s kind of a bummer “stealing” their youngin’s, but we don’t have a place for every mother hen and her hatchlings. We are thankful though it appears most of the turkey hens have been nesting in the barn so far and not out and about wherever.
And here’s a video of the progress thus far:
We are grateful to God for His kindness in providing these new turkeys, and we pray He might grant continued health and safety for them according to His will!
One of our young turkeys ended up having an eye problem, and so I brought it into the summer kitchen/brooder barn to try to help.
In the process however, one day I walked in, and it had on its head a big blister. I mean, its whole head was a huge blister.
Whaaat was that?? Looked like a big water blister.
Well, I went and looked it up online, and eventually found out that it wasn’t water, but air, and most likely because the turkey had a ruptured air sac. This site explained it (it seems the page is now only available from archive.org, so it may load a little slowly). It also made a crackling sound too when squooshed around.
In investigating further, apparently the avian respiratory system is a lot different than other mammals. Here’s a video I watched on it. Basically if I understand it correctly, it has small lungs and no diaphragm like us, but quite a few sacs in the chest and abdomen which fill up with air as part of a 2-cycle process to flow air in and out and into the lungs and body. Apparently this helps there be the large amount of air, and thus oxygen, required for flight. It was actually quite interesting and amazing to me!
Anyway, if one of the air sac ruptures, the air gets into the body under the skin. Thankfully though, apparently, it can heal, but it was suggested that it was good to release the air using something sterile to poke or cut a hole in the skin to do so.
And so I thought I’d give it a go. Here’s a video of one of the first times, and a few days later. Since this video, I’ve had to perform this procedure multiple times, even under the wing around its abdomen, and have discovered that it helps to pull on the pin (sterilized with rubbing alcohol) to make a bigger hole to help release the air quicker:
Even though I’ve had to repeat it, it does sometimes hold for several days, and I’ve changed to working on its eye only twice a day, to try to give it rest all day and all night, hoping the sacs will indeed completely heal.
We thank the Lord it has worked it seems so far, and we pray God might grant it healing eventually! And what an amazing Creator with the inner workings of a bird’s respiratory system!
With the chicken mommies hatching out a 2nd group and 3rd group of turkey chicks, and them continuing on in the brooder barn, and them getting big enough it seemed to not only cause ruckus in the brooder barn, but also because it’s just better to get them outside as quickly as possible, it was time to graduate them to freedom, and life with the rest of the turkey flock and homestead!
This was going to be something of an experiment, because in the past we’ve always sent them out with their turkey mommy to lead the way, so we were hoping despite that that they would stay around the homestead and go into the barn at night.
Sadly, by this time, one of the young turkeys caught a disease or something, and eventually didn’t make it. 🙁 And so, from the original 13, there were now 12, which we show in the following video starting with the day of the release, and then their adjusting to the outside world:
Today, they are all pretty much doing well. I believe I injured one’s leg when trying to manually round them up one night because they weren’t going into the barn (which they had been doing just fine by themselves up to that point), and it’s still limping. And another has something wrong with one of its eyes…maybe a small infection? Not sure, so they spend a lot of time in the barn, often together, although the limping one just a little while ago today was looking pretty weak, so I pulled it and put it in its own cage back in the brooder barn so it has unencumbered access to water and turkey (wild game) feed, which maybe being as small as it is it still needs. We do ask God He might grant them recovery.
But generally, the other 10 or even the eye one too roam around like they own the place, 🙂 although we do still have to direct them a little into the barn at night sometimes.
But, we do thank the Lord for their continued general health and safety, and pray He might continue to grant that to them!
With the surrogate chicken mommy with turkey chicks working so well, and with chicken hens again being much more easy to handle, and with another turkey/chicken mommies set sitting on turkey eggs in the barn, if they hatched, we’d thought we’d try to grab them and a chicken mommy and put them in the brooder barn to hopefully grow.
Here is the turkey mommy and the two chicken mommies in the barn on the eggs, and I believe even at least one hatched-out:
And thanks to God’s graces, they did hatch out several over a couple of days, and we moved one of the chicken hens and the youngins into the brooder barn, and along with the picture at the top, here they are, 5 in total!
And here’s their video:
As always, we thank the Lord for these continued provisions, and may He always glorify Himself in these things!
After we had a turkey mommy accidentally hatch out a chicken chick, we discovered in the barn next to the north footer in the middle a set of turkey eggs being sat on by both a turkey and a chicken. Since the turkey mommy worked well as a surrogate to the chicken chick, I started to wonder if maybe a chicken mommy might make a good surrogate for turkey chicks, especially because a chicken hen is much easier to work with than the larger and stronger turkey hen.
Well, the little things started to hatch, and eventually the chicken mommy ended up near the big door across the barn to the east with the chicks under her, and the turkey mommy kind of hanging out behind her. So, it was round up the youngin’s and the chicken mommy and get them into the summer kitchen (now basically what is a brooder barn).
There were 6 of them, and we initially started them in a cage on the table, which you can see in the video below.
Then not long after, another turkey/chicken mommy group in the barn hatched out 1, and it was walking around on the hay stack next to them, and so we grabbed it and put it in with the brooder barn mommy, hoping she would accept it, and she did!
And then, another 1 from that same 2 mommies in the barn, and so it was off to the brooder barn.
And so now, there are 8 turkey chicks with their chicken mommy in the brooder barn all still doing great! That last one is a little tiny, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to make it, but it’s still going!
And, along with the picture above, here is another picture of them. However, the chicken mommy at this point seems to be losing interest in attending to them as a mommy, and has been jumping out of the caged run area, so we may just let her go soon, although we do like the idea that these mommies being there might protect the young from snakes:
And here is their video:
We thank the Lord for granting these new little provisions, and for the idea and gracious success of a chicken hen taking care of the young turkey chicks!
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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