Miniature Poultry
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In February of  of 2012, we order 15 Jersey Buff turkeys form Porters Rare Heritage Turkeys.  We are anxiously awaiting their arrival.

 

  
In the spring of 2008 we ordered several breeds of bantam chickens. They were all straight run and all extra cockerels went into the freezer. They are very tasty and just the right size for us. There are no left overs and everyone has plenty. We also canned some homemade broth, which has made some satisfying chicken noodle soup on cold winter days.

This pen has New Hampshire Reds and Dark Cornish Bantams.

This larger pen has Buff Orpingtons which will be our main layers. They are laying well now and the 2 gallon buckets with woods chips are working fine as nest boxes.  We also have Rhode Island Reds in this pen. I will have to build more pens so that I can separate the breeds and hatch some pure chickens later this year.
We plan to try our own Cornish Rock crosses this season. This will be a sex link cross with the Dark Cornish over the Barred Rocks and Delaware hens. We have plenty of eggs from the little birds and they aren't very much smaller than those the we pick up from the game chickens that run loose at the barn. We built some small pens that we move them around the pasture in. They get a new patch of grass every day.

 

 

We are currently selling extra eggs for $2 per 18 egg carton.

If you are in the area and are interested in some eggs,

please give us a call.

 
In January of 2009, I placed an order for 20 Midget White Turkeys to be delivered in March. We plan to raise them on pasture as well. If we are successful at raising these poults, I hope to sell one or two pairs in the fall, put a few toms in the freezer and retain enough brood stock to raise our own next year.
Our 20 Midget White Turkeys and 5 Dark Cornish bantams arrived on Thursday March 12.  We had one DOA but all the rest are doing very well. The brooder is a recycled parts crate and the shavings are from brush we had cut off the fence for the goats and then chipped after they had stripped all of the leaves.

If we are successful raising these little guys, we hope to keep 10 or so for our brood flock, put a few toms in the freezer this fall, and have a pair or two for sale.

     
Well 16 of the turkeys have made it to 3 months of age. They are doing great, and like the chickens, feed consumption was cut in half  when they were moved to their pen in the pasture.  They mow the grass in a hurry  each day. We are really enjoying these birds and look forward to hatching our own next year.
     
     
After using one of the styrofoam incubators with varied success, I decided to build my own cabinet incubator.  I finished it this past week and set the first eggs on Father's Day.  There are 3 tilting shelves that will hold 4 of the plastic egg racks each, and they are deep enough to double stack them if needed.  I will have to manually tilt the shelves each day, I hope this works.