Thanksgiving Turkey Project

[Jaye]

Very nice!
A cautionary tale, though: We have a quail tractor and the base of our quail pen is very solid, like your Cackelac enclosure. We never had any issues in the over one and a half years it had been in use, until one day we moved one of the wire mesh panels surrounding the perimeter of the pen as a predator apron, and forgot to put it back, leaving one corner of our quail tractor unprotected. That night a weasel or raccoon dug a hole under the corner and killed all but three of our quail.

[Kbr42]

Looks great! Lots of space! It looks stromg enough to protect them.

[Giffen Farms]

Knock on wood I haven't had or seen any predators tracks around the shelter, d-day is on November 3rd, they've only gone through 4 bags of feed since being on the grass.

[Ontario Chick]

They look good enoug to eat
How long were you able to keep them in the tractor?
Or are they housed in it and let out during day?

[Killerbunny]

Hi @Giffen Farms that looks great and the birds too. Just wondered why you have a date for November 3rd? Mine is Oct 6th and they only process 2 x year. I haven't told mine though LOL.

[Giffen Farms]

They look good enoug to eat
How long were you able to keep them in the tractor?
Or are they housed in it and let out during day?

There's only 7 of them in it so lots of space and grass only need to move every 3 or when I remember days, the nights have been getting colder (this morning was only 3°) so I've been backing the shelter against the barn with the curtains down to stop any drafts.
I've never trusted any birds to stick around in the 20+ years of this addiction plus I seen a fox with mange early Monday morning (1:30am) when I was about to leave with a load to Hamilton

[Giffen Farms]

Hi @Giffen Farms that looks great and the birds too. Just wondered why you have a date for November 3rd? Mine is Oct 6th and they only process 2 x year. I haven't told mine though LOL.

That's the only date I could get with my busy farm/trucking schedule at country poultry processing near wallenstein, one day I'd like to learn how to process them myself

[Killerbunny]

@Giffen Farms They are much easier to process than chickens, lots of space to work and hard feathered with not much down to worry about, hand plucking is easy. They ARE heavy and hard work though which is why I have mine processed now and only do injured ones here. ALso the processor gets rid of the feathers. Only downside here is they don't have a second inspector for giblets so you don't get the livers back. It's a pity that our best processor only does 2 turkey days a year!