Four weeks is the time required to hatch turkey eggs. Newly hatched turkeys are far from spry. They have no interest in food nor in the world about them. It is forty-eight hours or even longer before they begin to take notice. Hard-boiled eggs chopped fine is a good first meal for them. Some growers take a pint of sweet milk in a saucepan, let it come to a boil, and stir into it two eggs well beaten. This makes a sort of custard and this quantity is said to be enough for fifty new turkey chicks. Cottage cheese without salt is recommended. A dusting of black pepper in the food is good for week-old turkeys, especially in cool weather.
Two deadly enemies of little turkeys are lice and wet. These are responsible for the high rate of mortality in flocks of all breeds. Keep them free from these by all known methods and with ordinary care in other details your profits are safe. If you tide over the first two months you will see the delicate chicks transformed into hardy little poults, holding their own with any kind of fowls.
I don't know of any one who ever made a success of turkeys on a small lot. Their habit of ranging can be restrained to the extent of keeping them off the neighbours, but close cooping opposes their natural instincts. They are great insect eaters and will pick up a fair living away from the feed trough. It is best to train them by a regular evening feeding to roost at home. You will want to count them frequently, especially as November draws near and the price begins to soar.
There are a number of breeds in cultivation. The biggest and perhaps the hardiest is the bronze turkey. Some consider their flesh less delicate than that of the smaller kinds. There is always a good market for any size. If all your neighbours have bronze turkeys and the flocks are always getting mixed, why not try the buff or black or the white Holland? The latter are almost as beautiful an ornament to the country home as peacocks, and can be seen at a great distance because of their brilliant white plumage.
If one wants to get enthusiastic over turkeys let him drive through a thrifty farming community in the fall and catch glimpses of the sunshine reflected from the burnished backs of the great flocks which ornament every farm yard. Or, if inclined to a meal of turkey, just inquire the price on the farm or in the market, and you will decide to raise some for your own use next year, and a few to sell.
RAISING PEACOCKS
We have it on the authority of the curator of birds of the New York Zoölogical Garden, Mr. C. William Beebe, that peafowls are not difficult to raise if the owner is watchful. Wouldn't it be a triumph to raise a family of these wonderful birds? Mr. Beebe says also that "peacocks are so common that we sometimes fail to appreciate their really wonderful colours." I wonder if that can be true. They were so uncommon in the Mississippi Valley when I was a child that I never saw one; it was less than ten years ago that I saw for the first time this regal bird spread his wonderful tail in the full sunlight. It was one of Mr. Beebe's own pets and I shall never forget nor fail to appreciate the sight.
A peahen lays fewer eggs than most birds of her size. She will lay three times a year if you succeed in "changing her current of thought" when she is broody. She usually wishes to sit on the first six eggs and as she has pretty good judgment in placing her nest and is a patient and courageous mother, you had better trust her to bring up her family, unless you wish to raise the first lot under hens or turkey mothers.
Like young turkeys, the little peachicks are very tender and susceptible to dampness. Woe unto them if the chill of an early May rain gets into their bones! This is the time when watchfulness on the owner's part is necessary.