We were given the evil eye by Napoleona this morning as she hissed and puffed and told us in no uncertain tones to back away. Trouble is we know that somewhere under her there may be at least one young poult and we are very keen to take a look. The risk of a peck isn't too bad, more of an issue is the thought Naploeona may get so worked up that in trying to 'fend us off' she stands on the poult or poults she is trying to protect.
So we did back off and just hope that maybe tomorrow we will get the chance to see 'what lies underneath'! We know there were three eggs under her and that when we last 'listened' to them we heard sounds from one..
To be honest, out turkey breeding this year has been a bit of a disaster. Napoleona did have eight eggs but four vanished and one was crushed, we lost three out of 14 of our Bourbon Red poults (bought in as day olds), FIVE of our six hatched Harvey Speckled poults sucumbed to what we think was acse of coccidiosis and our own hatching from our own eggs was virtually non-existent due to a bought-in almost totally infertile male and then a distinct lack of egg laying. We also have had the sniffles and various limping!!
We hope that of the remaining birds we do have (14 of various breeds) that we will have a strong male that will ensure a better year next year. We are not sure whether to keep a BR male and so breed some pure BR poults or just go for the strongest, nicest looking male we have and end up doing more cross breeding... we will probably hedge our bets and maybe choose two, keep them through the winter and then make a final decision in the spring. It will also depend of course on how many females we keep.....
So here's to hopefully finding at least one poult under Napoleona tomorrow... they are Harvey Speckled eggs so one more to add to our exisitng billy-no-mates would be nice!!