Eight Acres

The turkeys arrived at our property as 12 eggs, bursting out of an egg cartoon (being larger than chicken eggs), towards the end of June 2010.  We put them all straight into the incubator and 28 days later 4 chicks hatched.  They were just like chicken chicks, maybe a little bigger, but just as cute. Turkey chicks look like chicken chicks - very cute! The turkeys got bigger quickly and soon stopping looking like chickens.  They started to get their weird turkey features and we could see that we had 2 hens and 2 gobblers.  Speaking of gobblers, there's some wonderful terminology for turkeys, which has been a source of much amusement since they arrived here. Caruncle  - brightly colored growths on the throat region.  Turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship. Snood  - the flap of skin that hangs over the turkey's beak.  Turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship. Wattle  - the flap of skin unde...

Farmer Liz: Last week I started a series of interviews with bloggers who keep chickens , as a continuation of my series of interviews about getting started with growing your own .  Most of the bloggers from the first series keep chickens too and were keen to join in again.  You will remember Ohio Farmgirl from the last series , she's the one with all the dogs, well turns out she's got lots of chickens too....... Ohio Farmgirl: Hello, my name is Ohio Farmgirl and I am addicted to chickens..... Ah yes, chickens widely recognized as the “gateway drug” to farming. Sure you start out with just a small coop and a few laying hens in mind and before you know it you have turkeys, ducks, and all kinds of rare breed, designer chickens. It happens to all of us. Without a doubt, chickens are the best part of my farming day. I am completely addicted to chickens. I live on a small homestead-like farm in the middle of Ohio, USA. Here in The Good Land we have ducks and geese...

Last weekend we got up early and prepared for a morning of killing poultry, not my ideal Saturday morning, but the time had come, we were going through too much food and not getting enough eggs.  We had bred new hens, so it was time for the eldest of the flock to go.  This is never easy, but its part of farming.  We don't keep the chickens for pets, so we always know that one day we will kill them.  If you're a chicken-lover, you might find this hard to read, but if you EAT chicken, even free-range or organic etc, you should read on, as I guarantee that home-killed chickens have a much nicer life and death than any commercially produced chicken, and you should take an interest in where you meat comes from.  This is put well on the site I linked to below: Most people these days have become so removed from the reality of food production. As a result, we are practically helpless at providing our own food. We depend on the Industrial Providers to supply ...