Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
cause they have so few feathers and you can see if pinfeathers are coming in or not. Still
flying traditional-heritage turkeys are not so easy to identify.
Turkey feathers tend to pull away from the carcass easily, unless you've butchered
too early. Unfortunately, you sometimes don't know you've slaughtered too early until
you get your water and everything ready for butchering and the first one you kill stub-
bornly retains its feathers, or you find a significant underlying layer of the smaller pin-
feathers.
Many different factors, such as outside temperature, feed, breed, and so on, play a
role in age of maturity. But if your turkeys have reached proper maturity, they'll butcher
easily. Experience is really the best teacher here. Whatever you do, don't butcher them
when they begin to look interested in mating; even three- and four-day-old male turkeys
sometimes strut and act like the big boys.
A Waterfowl Year
With waterfowl, you have fewer things to worry about, but a bit of timeline know-how
helps make for a smoother experience. The following list will help you keep your farm
and raiser calendar up to date with the ducks and geese. Keep in mind that the ages of
the birds (three weeks, eight weeks) are an approximation.
Midspring
(April, May or June) is the best time to acquire waterfowl. That way you
can raise them all summer, taking advantage of the readily available nutritious meals on
pasture. Let them eat lots of grass and weeds; for ducks — bugs, slugs and worms.
At three weeks
feather tracts start developing. Watch carefully for the emergence of
these tracts and immediately cut down on protein content in the feed. Simultaneously
increase the plant material in the diet and monitor body growth for angel wing.
At eight weeks
some ducks are ready to butcher, but use extreme caution if it is mid-
summer and hot, as you will get more small, hard-to-pick feathers than you have time
for processing.
At five months
your ducks will start laying eggs for consumption, if provided proper
food and light. You can encourage ducks to lay throughout the winter easier than you
can coax chickens to do so. With no comb to freeze, ducks adapt to the cold better than
chickens.
In November
after the growing season has come to a close and the birds have put on
a little layer of fat, it's butchering time. When your waterfowl have feasted on pasture
all summer and much of the fall, the meat takes on a different flavor and texture, and is
far tastier than are ducks butchered earlier in the season and fed only grain.