Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

A day of eggs! We now have EIGHTEEN turkey eggs (first picture), all laid in the last eight days. Our three laying turkey hens: Katherine, Camilla and Victoria (spot the theme) have been amazing. Most mornings, one, two or all three make themselves a comfy nest in the straw of one of the houses, lay their egg and then head off back outside. The eggs are all perfectly shaped and beautifully clean. We have been storing them pointed side down so the rounded end with the air sac is at the top. We do this as it helps the moisture in the egg to stay there so keeping the egg fresher and the yolk in place. The air sac is there so that when the chick starts to grow it has some air to breath. (Have you ever cracked a hard-boiled egg at the rounded end and seen that the white does not completely fill the top?). Our plan now is to 'set' these eggs which means put them in an incubator at the correct temperature and so allow them to start to grow into baby turkeys.
Those of you who have been following the diary for a while will know however that we no longer have a male turkey and so you might now be asking the question: how can we have baby turkeys when we don't have a male to be the 'daddy'? Good question! Well, we know Napoleon had mated with all three of our female turkeys and amazingly his sperm (used to fertilise the eggs) stays inside the female turkey for up to THREE weeks before it dies. That means that any eggs laid in that three week period 'should' hopefully be fertile! We won't know if the eggs are fertile until we have had them in the incubator for at least five-six days and even though we know that these matings have taken place we cannot guarantee ALL the eggs will be fertile anyway (some eggs can get missed!). Time will tell!!
The eggs in the middle photo were discovered two days ago, neatly laid in our top paddock behind a spare chicken house just by the quail aviary. The bird responsible is this lovely golden bantam (we caught her emerging from the nest) and we are now wondering if she will stop laying, go all broody and then start to sit on them. To date there are ELEVEN. If she does want to hatch them out she will need to stop laying soon otherwise she won't fit all of them underneath herself... Will keep you posted on this one too!