52 



TURKEYS— THEIR CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



hens wean those under their charge the turkeys will let 

 them follow them and care for them all. 



Do not set your turkeys where there will be anything 

 to disturb them. When they hatch to be careful to handle 

 them very gently. If I iind I have one cross turkey about 

 to hatch, and 1 have a gentle, kind one not due to hatch, 

 I exchange the eggs and let the gentle turkey hatch the 

 brood. I And to prolong the period of incubation tones the 

 refractory disposition and often a turkey that will be fussy 

 at the end of four weeks, will be gentle at the expiration 

 of five. 



Pew people, comparatively speaking, know how to set 

 a turkey or domestic hen, or how to catch either a turkey or 

 chicken. When you find your turkey broody, let her alone 

 until night. Have your nest prepared in some quiet place 

 where she will be undisturbed by other fowls. Make the 

 nest with care. I like the grass nest better than anything 

 else, but as I do not have a bountiful supply of this I use 

 wheat straw. I do not like hay nests at all. Make them 

 very much the shape, hut not so deep, as a wash bowl. 

 If too deep the eggs will roll over each other and either 

 be broken or they will not be kept of an even temperature 

 during incubation. Make a full, thick nest, for four weeks' 

 sitting will mash the straw down very much. Put two 

 or three hen eggs, as they are not so valuable as turkey 

 eggs, in the nest. At night go to the hen very quietly and 

 put both hands under her, taking her firmly by the leg, 

 close to the body and lift her straight up. Don't drag her 

 out of the nest. Put her head under your arm gently, talk- 

 ing to her all the time. Place her on the new nest very gen- 

 tly and set a blind firmly in front of it. The next morning 

 you may peep in. It will be an exceptional case if she is 

 not sitting as well as she did on her old nest. I look at 

 her again about roosting time. If I find her restless I let 

 her off. If she is kept on the nest in this restless, nervous 

 state, she will break the. eggs and likely will not sit at all. 

 She will probably try to get to her former nest, but as dark 

 approaches she will go to the new one; or if she does not 

 allow her to go to the old one and remove her as before. 

 I have often had to do this several times with one hen. 

 As a rule, however, the second time is enough. You 

 may say that it is a great deal of trouble. I do not 

 call it trouble. It is work, and I learned very early 

 in life that to be successful in anything required patience 

 and work. 



After the hen has fully decided to accept the nest given 

 her then put the turkey eggs under her. So many people 

 waste by haste. What difference will two, three or four days 

 make in the age of the poults? But what a calamity to have 

 a sitting of turkey eggs spoiled by a restless hen. 



I usually give my turkeys the opportunity of getting off 

 the nest every day. I find this much more satisfactory than 

 keeping them so long without allowing them the chance 

 to get off. Often they do not come off for several days, 

 and I had one hen that never came off in four weeks except 

 as I took her off the nest. I then had to put the blind up 

 in front of the nest and force her to stay off long enough 

 to eat. I thought that I certainly would have a good hatch 

 from this hen, but I had only ten poults from seventeen 

 fertile eggs. She had smothered the turkeys by sitting so 

 close. Turkey eggs hatch better than chicken eggs, but 

 they require more moisture. 



If the weather is wet I do not moisten the eggs, but if 

 dry I sprinkle them the last week. When the eggs have 

 been setting until within three or four days of the time 

 to hatch, put them in clean, warm water — 100 degrees is 

 about right, or if it goes to 104 it will not hurt. All the 

 eggs which have live poults in them will move very per- 



ceptibly. Those which sink to the bottom have dead poults, 

 and those which float without any jerky motion are spoiled 

 or infertile. However, the infertile eggs usually sink. 

 TURKEY EGGS IN INCUBATORS. 



Will turkey eggs hatch in an incubator'.' They certainly 

 will. I once told, a lady that from fourteen turkey eggs in 

 an incubator I got fourteen turkeys. She in all seriousness 

 replied that "a hen would do as well as that." If you ex- 

 pect more than one turkey from an egg an incubator will 

 likely disappoint you. I do not hatch turkey eggs in an 

 incubator because I do not wish to raise the young in 

 brooders; but if an egg gets broken I put it in an incubator. 

 Last season the finest young turkey I had hatched was 

 from an egg with quite a large piece of shell broken off of 

 the large end and I cut a piece of cotton cloth just a little 

 larger than the hole and made a flour paste, just touched the 

 edges of the cotton wih it and placing it over the cavity, put 

 the egg in an incubator and it hatched in due time. The 

 reason I used cloth was — it is nearer the texture of the shell. 

 Paper is not porous enough. Flour paste is better than 

 glue: use only just enough to make the cloth adhere to 

 the egg. With a clean, damp cloth I wiped off all surplus 

 paste after the cloth was put on the egg. This would not 

 have hatched under a hen, as' she would have broken 

 the egg. 



Usually, I do not care to have turkeys hatch until after 

 the cold spell in May. But it is all right earlier if the 

 weather is warm. Yet if they come out any time in May 

 they will get the weight for the December and January 

 shows. This is one advantage southern breeders have over 

 western. We ship turkey eggs south as soon as the turkeys 

 begin to lay. When one has a large number of early hatched 

 turkeys I would not advise the raising of late ones un- 

 less they can be entirely separated from other fowls of 

 every kind. But if for any reason you have failed to have 

 early hatched ones, hatch them late. They make fine table 

 fowls. 



Years ago I bought a sitting of eggs from a prominent 

 turkey fancier. I was sorely disappointed when I opened 

 them as I had never seen such small turkey eggs. I made 

 another order to another fancier and never saw larger eggs 

 than I received. The turkeys hatched from the small eggs 

 grew to be larger at maturity, though of course they were 

 not so large when hatched, 



One torn from the small eggs weighed forty-four pounds 

 at two years old and one hen twenty-four. Those from 

 the large eggs never got so large, though they were fine 

 turkeys. In speaking of this to an old lady and my sur- 

 prise at results, she replied: "I don't see why you should 

 be surprised. Nature does not vary much, whether in lower 

 animals, the feathered tribe or the human family. All 

 depends on the blood." I believe the old lady was right. 

 I prefer medium sized eggs, both in turkeys and chickens. 

 I find the very large eggs hatch large young, but they are 

 not generally as well formed and often are weak legged 

 and while medium sized ones hatch smaller young they 

 seem more vigorous and grow much faster. Of course 

 there are eggs that are small to deformity— so are 

 there those that are large to deformity. Often the last egg 

 laid before a hen goes to sitting will be so small it will 

 have no yolk at all. It is also true that the largest eggs 

 are not always laid by the largest hens, though as a rule 

 pullets lay smaller eggs than hens. 



Many do not know the difference between an infer- 

 tile and a rotten egg. A rotten egg is never clear and an 

 infertile egg is always clear at hatching time and does not 

 have an offensive odor. Eggs may rot from age or because 

 they are not sufficiently fertilized and the germ dies be- 



