Talking Turkey. Or... Capital punishment - what could possibly go wrong?

Tuesday 18th December
I don't do Christmas, but I do do Christmas holidays!
It is a time to plan ahead for a new year, to clear the ground and prepare the beds.
In fact when I think about it the winter solstice is what it's all about really.

Anyway on a sort of Christmas theme, while I was pottering about in the veg plot today I could hear the turkeys making more of their strange bubbling calls than usual. This usually indicates that something is wrong. There's a predator or one of them has got out or something else exciting is happening. It doesn't usually require my immediate attention.
But after half an hour or so of endless bubbling I went to investigate.

One of the grey stags was endlessly pursuing the only black stag. It had hold of the strange dangly bits under its chin and was not about to let go. Even when I stepped in it would not let go.
So I made an instant decision. One week to go till Christmas day. hmmmm…

I caught the offender by the leg and carried him unceremoniously out of the turkey pen and out of sight of all the other poultry.
Five minutes later I was plucking our Christmas turkey!

Don't worry. This is not cruel.
He is already dead. 

Wednesday 19th December
I made a great job of plucking the turkey yesterday. It is now hanging in the stables. With the weather not too warm it can hang there a few days.
While I was planting some more willows in my new willow holt today, right next to the turkeys, the bubbling started up again. This time the black stag was the offender!
Was I too hasty yesterday? Did I get the wrong guy?

Sunday 23rd December update
Sue prepared the turkey today. It weighed in at an impressive 7.3 kg or 16lb (this is the weight once gutted and trimmed, as you would buy in the shops).
We don't necessarily aim for big birds and certainly wouldn't entertain the thought of keeping a double-breasted bird. But this was a good weight. The diet of fermented grains, seeds and pulses has obviously been a success.

Departures and Arrivals

Life In The Tropics
We had some rain! About two hours of it on my birthday.
If it did that two or three times a  week we would be on the way to recovery, but since then it's been even hotter and bone dry. School holidays may have started but we are getting little achieved on the smallholding. Anything more than extremely light work is impossible apart from the first and last hour or so of the day. In between it is just too hot to do anything.

Departures and Arrivals
It has been all change on the farm.
Sheep
Three sheep went off on Sunday morning, two of last year's rams which have one ball each(!) and one of last year's ewes. We had a choice between two ewes, a difficult choice which we eventually made based on their fleece for we have plans to get the autumn sheep's fleeces properly tanned.
We are desperately trying to conserve our grass so three sheep less eases the burden somewhat.

Sorry lads!

Turkeys
It's been all change in the turkey pen too. I forgot to mention it, but the second turkey hen had some chicks too. The first three joined the other hen and her two chicks, but the younger hen kept sitting on the remaining eggs. But there was trouble ahead, for as soon as they were born the other hen would kill them before we could save them. In the end I moved her and the older poults into a different pen and the younger hen was left with all six chicks. We decided to sell all six turkey chicks and two of the ten week old turkey poults. They went to local smallholders. We have kept plenty for meat for ourselves and sometimes it is better to cash in by selling them early rather than going to the effort of rearing and fattening them. Again having fewer birds puts less pressure on the land and the money from their sale funds the feed for those we keep.

 

Muscovy Ducklings
We have an extra two Muscovy ducklings too, hatched in the stables under one of our Cream Legbar hens. All I can say is that they are very cute but they don't stay like that for too long.

Laying Hens
There is another addition to the smallholding too. Our flock of old hens are hardly laying at all at the moment. The hot weather is not helping.
So we have brought in 8 ex-laying hens. They come from a free-range flock and should be much more productive than our old chooks. Within an hour they had already produced as many eggs as all the other hens.


We won't be so sentimental about them though. We will keep them until next year when we will replace them with a new group.
More on my opinions about buying in ex-layers in my next post.

Turkey Surprise

Another catch-up post which should bring us to mid July.
The drought continues... enough said about that. It is becoming a real problem.

Linseed field casts a blue shimmer as if reflecting the constant blue skies

The field next to us is almost always wheat. When it's not it's rape. The field behind us is almost always sugar beet. But this year we have something different, presumably because of the poor sowing conditions early in the year. Instead we have maize in the back field, as opposed to sweetcorn. This is a biofuel crop - astonishing that some of Britain's most fertile land is used to feed our energy consumption rather than our bellies. This change of land use did mean that we had two pairs of lapwings which I presume attempted to nest. I think the crows got them though.
And in the field next to us we have a delightful blue see of linseed. It is certainly attracting the cabbage whites at the moment.

In the veg plot, I have harvested the garlic and should really do the same with the shallots and onions. All these crops tried to bolt this year, unsurprisingly.

The broad beans are processed, mostly blanched and frozen and their place will be taken by Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants just as soon as it rains and I can dig even the tiniest holes in the soil. I almost missed the calabrese but caught it just before the buds opened. This freezes really well so I grow the crop to mature in two groups rather than over a long period.

Blanching Calabrese

Raspberries and Blackcurrants went mad this year. We are picking bags and bags of them. Every available space has now gone in the freezers.
When this happens Sue hunts through for last year's produce and digs it from the bottom of the freezers for wine and jam making.
She has just set a blackcurrant wine going and we were excited to be informed that raspberries make just about the best country wine going.



I always reserve one or two veg beds for bee crops as well as letting some parsnips go over to flower in their second year. These are a wonderful magnet for hoverflies.
This year I planted a cornfield mix with added barley and wheat. It hasn't quite turned out as I expected, for the whole patch filled with phacelia and borage. I am not sure whether this was residual seed in the soil or whether it was in the cornfield mix.
Anyhow the proper cornfield flowers are coming through underneath now and the whole is a blaze of colour and buzzing with bees.


The Pekin ducks we bought as 10 day olds are growing at stratospheric rates. Now big enough to be safe from crows, we let them out a couple of days back and herded them into the veg plot. The pond in there has dropped right down and is rather green, so I put the hose on to top it up. I didn't expect them all to just go diving right on in, but by the time I returned from the tap they were having a whale of a time. They were looking a bit green though!
We put some tyres and old planks in, for ducks are quite capable of getting waterlogged and drowning if there is no easy way out.
Amazingly having a proper bath and a thorough preen instantly changed the ducklings into ducks. There yellow down was superseded by creamy white and they suddenly look all grown up.

The meat chickens we had are now gone - don't ask if you don't want to know! They reached their weight in a much shorter time than we had anticipated. They only got a stay of execution as we did not have finishers ration in. This is the non-medicated pellets they are fed for the last week or two as the growers pellets need to be withdrawn.

Chickens just hanging around waiting to be plucked.
(they are not alive).

'Processing' the chickens was a big job, spread over two mornings. Let's just say that Friday 13th was an ominous date for the last seven. It is made much quicker by wet-plucking. We dip the carcass into a giant pot of water at 160F for 45 seconds. This loosens the feathers just enough without meaning that the skin rips easily. It reduces plucking time from over 20 minutes to under 5. You don't get a perfectly neat finish, but nearly all of our chicken is joined anyway so that it more easily fits in the small spaces in the freezer.
This time I boiled up the chicken feet and made a jelly stock which I divided up to go in the freezer. A good stock makes all the difference to so many recipes and I begrudge paying for those little foil packs.

The other chickens, the ragtag bunch of old ladies which we sentimentally let live on to old age, they are laying no more than two eggs a day between them. It is always a lean time and the drought isn't helping. Here are two of them and a Muscovy duck sat tight in the nest boxes. Between these three they were sitting on a grand total of one egg!


Last weekend we went along to our Country Winemaking group, again part of the Smallholders Club. Tonight we were doing blind wine tasiting. Sue's contribution was some elderflower champagne.
Fortunately we still had some left, for earlier in the week one of the bottles had exploded with such ferocity that it smashed a hole in the side of the plastic bin we were keeping it in.


We returned from Wine group to a big surprise. Four baby turkeys wandering around with the others. I didn't think they were due for another week yet. We had planned on removing the older poults before this happened, but all seemed to be getting along ok so we left them.
The next morning, quite by chance, I got a message from somebody in need of two newborn turkeys as her hen had accidentally destroyed all the eggs she had been sitting on. This was fine by me, for we are going to have excess turkeys this year and some need to be sold anyway.
Getting them out from under mum was a bit of a challenge but the mission was successfully achieved late evening so that the chicks could be put under their new mum in the dark. I have just received news that mum has accepted them and both are doing well.

So that brings us up to mid July. Just a week to go until schools break up for the summer. I'd like to think that will be the cue for endless downpours, but I somehow doubt it. This drought feels like it's in for the long haul.

Taking Stock on Midsummer's Day

Thursday 21st June 2018
Midsummer

It's midsummer. Most of the sowing is done. Most of the baby animals and birds are born. A few crops are starting to yield, but by and large this is a period of growing and rearing in readiness for harvest.

The Year's Weather So Far
Winter bites late then hangs around like a bad smell
The weather has been testing this year. Winter was not too bad until it turned round and bit us with The Beast From The East which was followed by a good few weeks of winter stubbornly putting its foot in the door and barring any entrance by Spring.
The cold snap was really challenging, especially for the pregnant ewes. We almost lost one, but in the end three ewes gave birth to seven lambs. We lost one and two ended up being bottle fed.
The runt third triplet, who we named Flash, continues to be very runtish. In contrast the other bottle fed lamb, Rambutan, is huge. All six lambs have just moved down into the further paddocks where the grass is now taller than they are.
The ewes are recovering well now too. We may give one or two of them a break from breeding next year.

The fruit and vegetables were left floundering too, maybe as much as a month behind usual. This was reflected in nature, with many migrant birds, including our swallows, arriving back very late. In fact many don't seem to have bothered at all.

A Warm and Wet Spring Finally Arrives
When Spring did arrive, it was pretty warm but came with plenty of rain. The water table sat just below the surface of the land so every time it rained we had puddles. The muddy conditions didn't last too long though and we have had much stickier in the past.

Early Summer And The Rain Dries Up
And so on into May and early summer. It has actually been very warm allowing many of the crops to catch up to close to where they should be by now. But it has been dry. Ridiculously dry. The water butts are all empty and I have had to water very selectively. We have only had five minutes of rain in the past month and the ground has gone from waterlogged to gaping cracks opening up. There is still water enough under the surface for most of the outdoor crops, but the carrots have completely failed. This happened two years ago too when we had similar conditions - a cold damp early start to the season followed by dry conditions and a hard crust on the soil.
At least I can still get a good crop in the polytunnel where they are more easily nurtured.
I am not sure how much the early potatoes will swell up. They should just about be ready for harvest soon, so I gave them a good drink last night. This should help them along.

And I am a little worried about the sheep paddocks. At the moment they are still ok, but if we don't get rain soon there will not be enough lush grass to fatten our lambs well.
People have already cut their hay and are baling it at the moment. I like to collect it straight off the field, but my first line of supply was short this year as the grass yield is down. Hopefully the second will come good.

On the positive side though, the sweetcorn, pumpkins and tomatoes are loving the Mediterranean climate.
It seems to be a good year for most of the fruit too. Apples and pears look like they will give us our first really decent harvest now that the orchard is maturing nicely. The blackthorns are absolutely smothered in sloes.

The strawberries are doing very well, free of strawberry seed beetle which devastated the crop last year, though a little rain might help them to swell up a bit more. The sunshine is making them taste like little buttons of sweet deliciousness.
The raspberries are just beginning to ripen and should produce bucket loads and the gooseberries are almost ready. Last year was disappointing for these but this year looks like a good crop of large berries.
The currants are not faring so well this year. It may be time to replace some of the bushes. They seem to prefer cooler, wetter years.
Finally, the cherries are ripening so hopefully we can get at least some of them before the birds do.

Poultry
The turkeys have enjoyed the dry weather too. In fact it was the day the poults hatched that it stopped raining. The nine poults we have kept for fattening up are doing extremely well, so well indeed that the two hens have left them and are both now sitting on new clutches of eggs.

If these hatch it will be a big bonus for us as the sale of the young turkeys will more than pay for the food to rise them and to support the adult birds through the year.

The meat chickens which we purchased as day old chicks about ten weeks ago have put on a sudden spurt of growth, so much so that they are pretty much ready to go in the freezer. It is a short life for them but they have had it infinitely better than any commercially produced birds, even the so-called free-range ones. I wasn't expecting them to make weight quite so soon, so need a couple of weeks to change their diet to finish them properly. But their early departure will free up accommodation and give the chance to rest the ground a bit.
It is actually quite good to be able to buy in, raise and dispatch in a relatively short period. Having lots of birds in different pens with different feed requirements can be quite demanding and quite a tie.

We decided not to breed any geese this year, but to sell the eggs instead. But one of the geese had different ideas as we found her sat on five eggs in a tyre outside. Sadly, the day after we found her the next was abandoned and the eggs gone. At least the goose was still alive.

And lastly, the Muscovy ducklings are growing well. They are still living in with the three silkie hens but will move out when they are old enough for they need  lot of space.



So that's it for the year so far.
Where it goes from here very much depends on the weather. If we return to normal levels of rain as we head into the second part of the year then it could turn out to be a very good year. If not... well.

While the Turkey-Keeper's Away (in Turkey), the Turkeys will Lay

So I have been in Turkey for a little holiday. Birdwatching of course. A beautiful country. A massive thank you to Sue for looking after everything while I was away.

I was quick to check up on everything on my return. The lambs and sheep are doing well (apart from Rambutan losing a horn). The chickens and ducks are good. The vegetable garden is all under control, though I am having difficulty getting beans and carrots to germinate. We have had no more rain since I went away.

But it's the turkeys I want to talk about. The nine surviving poults are doing very well indeed. I am sure the warm, dry weather has helped greatly. They are now able to fly up onto the top of the shelter I made for them.


But yesterday I could not see the two hens. It didn't take long to find them together in one of the little houses. One of them laid an egg as I watched! This was a surprise, but no more than finding that this was the eighth egg they had stored up in the house.

As with last year, the hens have gone back into lay. It is still early, but if they are both laying then I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them start to sit in the near future.
We could certainly accommodate a second batch of turkeys. They are easy to sell at any age. In fact I would probably sell some of the first batch so that we end up with more of a progression of turkeys for the table.
Maybe I am getting ahead of myself though. I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch!

Outdoor reared turkeys

Tuesday 22nd May 2018
The Dry Weather Turkey Chicks
The original plan was to move the young turkeys with one or both of their mums up to a stable once they were born. I don't like keeping birds inside, for I think that fresh air and exploration are key to their upbringing. However crows, cold and getting wet are most definitely not key to their upbringing.
A couple of years ago I made the mistake of putting some poults outside when they appeared strong and fully feathered at about 6 weeks old. They got soaked during a storm and were obviously suffering. I brought them back in, but over the next week we lost about one a day. It was heart-breaking.

This year we ended up with 14 chicks from two hens, ten from the more experienced hen and just four from the other. Very quickly two chicks swapped mums to the older hen. We sold four chicks while they were very young, which should pay for the others' food for a while. After a bit of 'negotiation' the ten remaining chicks are now being shared between both mums.
This year's turkey chicks have brought us good weather. They are ten days old now and have not yet seen a spot of rain. I am veering towards letting them stay outside. To this end I knocked them up a shelter, as much as anything to keep their food dry. While they are small they can all dive under mums protective wings, but they won't all fit forever.

A bigger job was to prevent them wandering through the heras fencing, for the crows have young now and will be on the lookout for any opportunity to grab a tasty treat. The young turkeys are inquisitive and go wandering through the nettles which surround the turkey pen. However the adults can't get through to protect them.
I rummaged around and found a roll of chicken wire and a roll of plastic tree protector. I found a jar of old twist ties which I'd been saving up too. Securing all this to the heras fence was a long and repetitive job and the young turkeys kept finding ways through.
In the end we got there though.

Thursday 24th May 2018
The first rain for a long while, which was desperately needed. The turkey chicks should be ok now. They are 12 days old and Mum knows what she is doing. When the wind turns cold or the air turns damp, she heads into one of the houses and spreads her wings to shield the poults.

Next to the turkey pen, the meat chickens are growing at a staggering rate. I have them separated from the other chickens so I can feed them the appropriate diet for their stage in life. At present they are on what is known as growers pellets, though they go mad for any bit of greenery I throw in the pen. They stay on these pellets until a couple of weeks before their time is up, when they move onto finisher pellets (the clue is in the name).

Growing fast

Finally  a couple of other images from the smallholding. The first is a wonderful wild rose which is brightening up my native hedge at the moment.
The second shows the strawberry rows which we have been weeding ready for the harvest. No sign of the dreaded strawberry beetle which plagued us last year, so fingers crossed for our best ever strawberry year.