Midget White Turkey's strange behavior

[Tennessee Great Granny]

I hatched out 3 batches of Midget White Turkey Eggs. My first batch were born April and another batch a couple weeks later and a third smaller batch early summer. They are all big enough to be grouped together. The males ratio to females is 3 to 1, luck of the draw I guess. We had to separate out the more aggressive males. We've been selling the extra males off as best we can even though lots of folks whine they can't afford them. If they can't afford to pay for them they surely can't afford to feed them over the winter. I won't do that to my birds. The toms were drawing blood and trampling on the smaller females. My inside bird hospital was getting full. We have one pen for females and a couple non-aggressive males. The other pen is strictly for the males. The male aggression seems to work like an aphrodisiac on the females. and they are breeding but not laying eggs. Mind you next week is Thanksgiving, and I was under the impression they don't breed until March or April. Anyone have anything to offer on that account? Should I start preparing to be ready for eggs soon with our winter just coming on??? We hand raised all of our turkeys from hatching. Most are friendly. The most aggressive are the big toms. We found with extreme calmness by walking around them and gently separating them that it works well by taking their minds off of the fighting. But we only do that if it is excessive. We patched up a lot of injuries before discovering calm is better and by not adding more aggressive behaviors which triggers the hostilities further we have peace in the turkey pens. If they sort it out themselves they have their dominance situated naturally. Getting upset with them with aggressively parting them adds fuel to the fires of madness. I know hormones can affect their temperament. The aggression has gone to the point one male skinned another and killed it. I rescued one from being drowned by another male and I had to put him in our house hospital with vitamins, extra food, and R&R. A whole bunch of petting and loving on always helps too. That whole almost being drown in mud was extremely traumatic for him. I gave him a warm bath that he wasn't even able to stand up in from the shock. Then I had a young female that was scalped to the bone. She was begging and pleading in an extremely submissive posture to no avail. Her head swelled up so bad that she couldn't see anything and she couldn't hear either. There was no way to sew up that big of a gap so I filled the huge hole with antibiotic salve and dropper fed her fluids and pain killers. I switch to watered down duck yolk with vitamins (and a tiny pinch of white refined sugar) as a dropper feed as soon as she (and all of my severely injured or sick birds) can tolerate food. By day five the swelling on her whole head started to abate. I had her on some watery gruel of game bird crumble.Then she would start to eat but she still had difficulty seeing what she was doing. She got extremely depressed but the only thing I had to offer her for constant companionship was a couple of newborn ducklings. They snuggled close to her and they would be close today if they weren't now living with their own feather groups. Gracie is one of the most loving and friendliest of birds. You'd never know she had the entire scalp ripped off of her head at one point. Yes she has a scar but one has to really look for it to see it, and it is a very long scar, that took months to totally close up. I have two other birds who are just as affectionate. Little Bit ( a runt I am sure- but catching up fast) and Precious Pup (who still sounds like a barking puppy). Runts need extra hand feeds and snuggling so they grow and thrive. Depression can set in if they don't have a companion. Her companion was Precious Pup who just loves everyone. I encouraged it and they are besties. These are my little snuggle babies. But almost all the birds let me pet them and visit. For that matter they demand a ten minute visit daily. My son does the morning visits and I do the bed time visits. So if anyone can answer about the extraneous breeding, I'd love to hear about it. This is after all my first year with turkeys. I am having fun learning with them as they grow hopefully I'm figuring things out as we go and learning from mistakes. For the most part they seem a happy lot. The only time they seem a little too happy is when they manage to escape. We can always tell by the gleeful chortling They'd love to free range but predators abound, and so do hunters that don't think they can tell a tame white turkey from the wild darker ones. . Not my babies!

 

[Molpet]

Sounds like you need more room so they can get away from each other. My poultry yard is around 150 ft x 600 for 36 turkeys and 70 chickens, really needs to be bigger.

 

[Molpet]

I've never had a fall egg, but someone who hatched mine did. The neighbors have yard lights and I wonder if that's a trigger

 

[R2elk]

I hatched out 3 batches of Midget White Turkey Eggs. My first batch were born April and another batch a couple weeks later and a third smaller batch early summer. They are all big enough to be grouped together. The males ratio to females is 3 to 1, luck of the draw I guess. We had to separate out the more aggressive males. We've been selling the extra males off as best we can even though lots of folks whine they can't afford them. If they can't afford to pay for them they surely can't afford to feed them over the winter. I won't do that to my birds. The toms were drawing blood and trampling on the smaller females. My inside bird hospital was getting full. We have one pen for females and a couple non-aggressive males. The other pen is strictly for the males. The male aggression seems to work like an aphrodisiac on the females. and they are breeding but not laying eggs. Mind you next week is Thanksgiving, and I was under the impression they don't breed until March or April. Anyone have anything to offer on that account? Should I start preparing to be ready for eggs soon with our winter just coming on??? We hand raised all of our turkeys from hatching. Most are friendly. The most aggressive are the big toms. We found with extreme calmness by walking around them and gently separating them that it works well by taking their minds off of the fighting. But we only do that if it is excessive. We patched up a lot of injuries before discovering calm is better and by not adding more aggressive behaviors which triggers the hostilities further we have peace in the turkey pens. If they sort it out themselves they have their dominance situated naturally. Getting upset with them with aggressively parting them adds fuel to the fires of madness. I know hormones can affect their temperament. The aggression has gone to the point one male skinned another and killed it. I rescued one from being drowned by another male and I had to put him in our house hospital with vitamins, extra food, and R&R. A whole bunch of petting and loving on always helps too. That whole almost being drown in mud was extremely traumatic for him. I gave him a warm bath that he wasn't even able to stand up in from the shock. Then I had a young female that was scalped to the bone. She was begging and pleading in an extremely submissive posture to no avail. Her head swelled up so bad that she couldn't see anything and she couldn't hear either. There was no way to sew up that big of a gap so I filled the huge hole with antibiotic salve and dropper fed her fluids and pain killers. I switch to watered down duck yolk with vitamins (and a tiny pinch of white refined sugar) as a dropper feed as soon as she (and all of my severely injured or sick birds) can tolerate food. By day five the swelling on her whole head started to abate. I had her on some watery gruel of game bird crumble.Then she would start to eat but she still had difficulty seeing what she was doing. She got extremely depressed but the only thing I had to offer her for constant companionship was a couple of newborn ducklings. They snuggled close to her and they would be close today if they weren't now living with their own feather groups. Gracie is one of the most loving and friendliest of birds. You'd never know she had the entire scalp ripped off of her head at one point. Yes she has a scar but one has to really look for it to see it, and it is a very long scar, that took months to totally close up. I have two other birds who are just as affectionate. Little Bit ( a runt I am sure- but catching up fast) and Precious Pup (who still sounds like a barking puppy). Runts need extra hand feeds and snuggling so they grow and thrive. Depression can set in if they don't have a companion. Her companion was Precious Pup who just loves everyone. I encouraged it and they are besties. These are my little snuggle babies. But almost all the birds let me pet them and visit. For that matter they demand a ten minute visit daily. My son does the morning visits and I do the bed time visits. So if anyone can answer about the extraneous breeding, I'd love to hear about it. This is after all my first year with turkeys. I am having fun learning with them as they grow hopefully I'm figuring things out as we go and learning from mistakes. For the most part they seem a happy lot. The only time they seem a little too happy is when they manage to escape. We can always tell by the gleeful chortling They'd love to free range but predators abound, and so do hunters that don't think they can tell a tame white turkey from the wild darker ones. . Not my babies!

Sounds to me like you have too many turkeys in too small of areas. Turkeys need a lot more personal space than chickens need.

Your turkeys are old enough to be sexually mature. Breeding can happen at least a month before egg laying starts.

If you have supplemental lighting it can throw off their diurnal clock. At least one person found out that their night light was close enough to the turkey's roost that it messed up their egg laying cycle.

 

[Tennessee Great Granny]

I hatched out 3 batches of Midget White Turkey Eggs. My first batch were born April and another batch a couple weeks later and a third smaller batch early summer. They are all big enough to be grouped together. The males ratio to females is 3 to 1, luck of the draw I guess. We had to separate out the more aggressive males. We've been selling the extra males off as best we can even though lots of folks whine they can't afford them. If they can't afford to pay for them they surely can't afford to feed them over the winter. I won't do that to my birds. The toms were drawing blood and trampling on the smaller females. My inside bird hospital was getting full. We have one pen for females and a couple non-aggressive males. The other pen is strictly for the males. The male aggression seems to work like an aphrodisiac on the females. and they are breeding but not laying eggs. Mind you next week is Thanksgiving, and I was under the impression they don't breed until March or April. Anyone have anything to offer on that account? Should I start preparing to be ready for eggs soon with our winter just coming on??? We hand raised all of our turkeys from hatching. Most are friendly. The most aggressive are the big toms. We found with extreme calmness by walking around them and gently separating them that it works well by taking their minds off of the fighting. But we only do that if it is excessive. We patched up a lot of injuries before discovering calm is better and by not adding more aggressive behaviors which triggers the hostilities further we have peace in the turkey pens. If they sort it out themselves they have their dominance situated naturally. Getting upset with them with aggressively parting them adds fuel to the fires of madness. I know hormones can affect their temperament. The aggression has gone to the point one male skinned another and killed it. I rescued one from being drowned by another male and I had to put him in our house hospital with vitamins, extra food, and R&R. A whole bunch of petting and loving on always helps too. That whole almost being drown in mud was extremely traumatic for him. I gave him a warm bath that he wasn't even able to stand up in from the shock. Then I had a young female that was scalped to the bone. She was begging and pleading in an extremely submissive posture to no avail. Her head swelled up so bad that she couldn't see anything and she couldn't hear either. There was no way to sew up that big of a gap so I filled the huge hole with antibiotic salve and dropper fed her fluids and pain killers. I switch to watered down duck yolk with vitamins (and a tiny pinch of white refined sugar) as a dropper feed as soon as she (and all of my severely injured or sick birds) can tolerate food. By day five the swelling on her whole head started to abate. I had her on some watery gruel of game bird crumble.Then she would start to eat but she still had difficulty seeing what she was doing. She got extremely depressed but the only thing I had to offer her for constant companionship was a couple of newborn ducklings. They snuggled close to her and they would be close today if they weren't now living with their own feather groups. Gracie is one of the most loving and friendliest of birds. You'd never know she had the entire scalp ripped off of her head at one point. Yes she has a scar but one has to really look for it to see it, and it is a very long scar, that took months to totally close up. I have two other birds who are just as affectionate. Little Bit ( a runt I am sure- but catching up fast) and Precious Pup (who still sounds like a barking puppy). Runts need extra hand feeds and snuggling so they grow and thrive. Depression can set in if they don't have a companion. Her companion was Precious Pup who just loves everyone. I encouraged it and they are besties. These are my little snuggle babies. But almost all the birds let me pet them and visit. For that matter they demand a ten minute visit daily. My son does the morning visits and I do the bed time visits. So if anyone can answer about the extraneous breeding, I'd love to hear about it. This is after all my first year with turkeys. I am having fun learning with them as they grow hopefully I'm figuring things out as we go and learning from mistakes. For the most part they seem a happy lot. The only time they seem a little too happy is when they manage to escape. We can always tell by the gleeful chortling They'd love to free range but predators abound, and so do hunters that don't think they can tell a tame white turkey from the wild darker ones. . Not my babies!

Update. We lost almost all of our breeding stock of Midget white turkeys to a Cane Corso dog who's owners lost control of and the devastation was ugly. It was Gracie who managed to be the sole survivor. I had one male with a sucking chest wound that lived a few hours. If he was a human he would have needed the intensive care unit. At least I could take care of his severe pain for him until he passed away. Grace is still recovering her wounds and it is almost 8 weeks. She's now started laying eggs, but until her wounds close up she can't breed safely. We were able to salvage some eggs from the first flock and I immediately placed them in the incubator. I also found some midget whites for sale in the next state over and got a couple hens and a tom. This is all a part of poultry raising in the back yard. We have reinforced the bigger pen but we are constructing much sturdier coops- not from a kit for our birds. and a stronger wired fencing for their run. We managed to keep cats and raccoons and possums out but not a dog who weighs more than I do who stands taller on it's hind legs than I am. That dog decimated the entire flock in ten minutes and we barely got our shoes on before he was done. I can't blame the dog for being a dog and doing what dogs tend to do- but the owners refuse to even acknowledge the dog is theirs. It was a bloody carnage to clean up and quite devastating. My son has ordered ten fertile turkey eggs coming in 6 weeks We're not licked yet. In the next couple months we will have two strong turkey huts who's design so far have warded off all sorts of varmints. And one combined turkey run which we hope will be okay for both flocks. And we're turning the store bough 10X12 coop hut into a storage area for dry straw, feed and equipment. It's unfortunate the cane corso went for the breeding stock. He never managed to get anywhere near the bull pen. We so had hoped to add lots of poults to our repertoire of babies for this year.The toms were all ready for their new home and they are gone. Of our egg babies we have 6 little ones. The new turkeys are laying an egg every now and then, all which are being incubated right away, and we aren't waiting to collect them as a batch hatch. We are just glad to have them in our breed of choice. Three or four babies due within the next week!!! They'll get spoiled and have a brand new place to call home as soon as they can go outside. There is also an outside perimeter fence going up around all the birds. The T posts are almost all in place and every payday another 50 feet of fence will go up until it is all finished. I bought repurposed fishing nets and plan to sew them together to cover their entire new expanded turkey run that goes inside of the perimeter fence. If a dog or cat makes it past 2 fences , I'd be surprised. Now to get rid of rats that are coming out of the woods to eat the feed. (we're starting with metal storage containers) and snap traps within closed box traps (baited with peanut butter and strawberry jam) that birds can't access, and bait chunx outside of the bird areas and we're constantly changing extermination methods because rats are extremely smart. We're about to try corn muffin mix with baking soda. Someone told me to use farina cereal instead of the muffin mix... but if it's supposed to be the baking soda added to the muffin mix and they said to use the farina plain I wonder how they think that works? It's the baking soda that is the active ingredient because it produces belly gas and rats (mice and other rodents) do not burp or pass gas. All birds and dogs cats and kids can burp and pass gas with the best of them. So it's pet & kiddie friendly. I'd appreciate any suggestions to getting rid of rats. Those buggers multiply like you would not believe.

 

[Molpet]

Update. We lost almost all of our breeding stock of Midget white turkeys to a Cane Corso dog who's owners lost control of and the devastation was ugly.

I am so sorry for your losses.
Is that particular dog still a potential issue? I know the dog doesn't know better but with the stupidity of the owners..... I have taken problem dogs that I didn't want to dispatch to another county's pound and never seen them again.

 

[LaurenRitz]

A possibility. Set a large trap for the dog. When you catch it, notify the neighbors that if it's not their dog you'll send it to the pound. If they claim the dog, record the interaction.

Set up bucket traps for rodents. Another possibility, although one I have not tried, is plaster of paris with a nearby water source.