Baby Turkeys

Henny’s eggs started hatching.  Her nest was not in a good place for her to have her babies so I planned on waiting for one of my kids to help me move her into a “maternity pen”.  I couldn't wait for help. I am too impatient so I set up and moved the maternity ward pen by myself. Then I got brave and moved Henny and her poults to the new area. She was not happy with me - tried to bite me a couple times succeeded once. At first we had 11 baby turkeys and one working frantically to get out of its egg. Then Henny sat back on the eggs and told me to give her some privacy.

I was so thrilled.  Day old turkeys are easy to sell for $10 each.  I was thrilled.  One of my animals might actually start helping pay for herself!  I wanted to wait until they were at least a week old just because I have read that baby turkeys are so fragile.

13 poults hatched.  One died the first night.  The babies thrived.  The eggs that the other turkey hen put in her nest never hatched.  When the poults were 6 days old my son discovered 4 dead in the pen.  We cleaned out the pen, made sure the rest were healthy, and continued checking on them throughout the day.  One died after escaping the cage.  Everything was fine at 2:pm, then we got busy. 

When we went to feed the animals and put everyone in a pen for the night, we discovered 3 more dead.  Henny appeared to be trying to protect the poults from the wind by grabbing and stepping on the babies. 

We put the 4 surviving poults in a small cage with a heat lamp.  I was very worried when we went to check on the babies but they seem to be thriving.