Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Napoleon has been much better behaved the last few days. Arthur and Joel were helping out on the holding today and neither had any problem at all with him. The photos show the possible reason for this: namely he has been too busy mating with his 'girls'. It all begins with him doing a fabulous sideways dance around the females, with wings lowered and tail held high. If the females are impressed they will respond by circling the male a few times and then laying down. At this point they are clearly saying 'I am ready'.
As with most poultry, turkeys mate by standing on the females' backs, often holding the heads with their beaks to keep the females still and themselves balanced. A male turkey is a big bird and the difference in weight between a male and female turkey can be huge. As such it can be quite painful for the females especially if the male digs his claws in which can be very sharp. In our first year of breeding turkeys, the male ripped the back of one of his females and drew blood. Having learnt the hard way, we bought some turkey 'saddles' which you can fit on the female's back to protect her. The biggest problem is that the male turkey is not quick and he can 'tread' the female for several minutes before settling down and actually mating.
We have to say that despite his aggression to us, Napoleon was not that rough with his females and so at the moment we don't feel the need to put the saddles on them. The big disadvantage to turkeys wearing saddles is that they are perfect warm hiding places for creepy crawlies which may make the turkey itch or worse. In theory now the female turkeys should start laying eggs in the next couple of weeks and then we will have the delightful job of thinking about when we want to start incubating some. Baby turkeys are VERY cute!!!