The Turkeys

 

This is our tom turkey.
A tom turkey is a boy turkey.
I love his feathers!

https://youtu.be/VEsgmxRnn9Y

Did you see the rooster walk through the video? We have one rooster and one tom turkey. We have two turkey hens. You saw those in another post. 

Baby turkeys aren't smart. 
Sometimes we have to take them away from their parents because they aren't smart enough to do what their mom tells them to do.
Sometimes they jump into buckets of water and drown. It's really sad!
I leave small water feeders in lots of places when we have baby turkeys, but they forget where they are. 

One year we had 16 baby turkeys born to our turkey hen.
Only 3 lived until they were grown up.
The tom turkey in the video is one of the babies that lived.

If you want to read more about turkeys that aren't smart, you can read this post.

I really hope that you are smart enough to follow what your mom and teachers tell you to do! They are trying to keep you safe and healthy!

I'm not sure what you mean by 'colder'
We live about 30 minutes away from your school.
It's usually close to the same temperature here as it is at your school.

The weather doesn't bother the animals. 
The sheep have warm, wool 'coats' on in the winter. 
They are very warm even though they have snow on their backs!

All of our farm animals have shelter. Some have stalls in the barn, some have sheds to get into out of the rain and snow, some have small shelters to snuggle inside when it's cold.

No, we don't have any pigs.
The city we live in doesn't let us have pigs.
Sad! We would love to try to raise a pig or two!
We've never done that before!

I bet you can figure out the age of each of the dogs if I give you their birthdates.

Mishka is on the left. Her birthday is April 14, 2019.
JJ is on the right. Her birthday is January 3, 2010
Scout isn't in the picture. He wanted to stay inside today.
His birthday is October 30, 2010

We have 2 cows, 1 milk goat, and 3 sheep. 
We have 3 turkeys, 6 ducks, and about 20 chickens.

We get 4-5 dozen eggs a week right now.
We'll get more as the weather warms up, and the sun is out longer.
Did you know that chickens need about 14 hours of daylight each day to lay eggs?

If you have dogs or cats, you might be noticing that they are beginning to shed their winter coats. You might have a lot of fluff and hair around your house. That's because the days are getting longer, and the dogs' bodies know that more daylight means that it's getting warmer.

Chickens are similar. They already got their new feathers in the fall. New feathers will keep them warm. But less daylight also tells their body to slow down on laying eggs. Now that we have more daylight, their bodies know it's a good time to start laying more eggs!

We are hoping that we get a chicken and a turkey to sit on some eggs and hatch them out. I'll be sure to let you know when that happens. It's so much fun to see the babies hatch!