The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-03-27
Spring Management of Turkeys.

Turkeys begin to lay, in ordinary sea-
sons, the last week in March. Their nat
ural disposition leads them to seek nests in
woodlands, away from the farmhouse
This should be prevented. Their natural
enemies are the fox and skunk. The for
mer steals the turkey, the latter the eggs;
and where these animals abound, the
chance of escape from the one or the other
is about one in five.
This difficulty must be met at the outset.
The best way is to prepare as many porta
BILE miniature houses as you have turkeys.
They should be three feet long, three feet
wide, and three feet high, triangular in
shape, with an entrance at one end.
These should be placed in some locality
near the house, where the turkeys are ac-
customed to resort, and be partially filled
with hay, or straw, or leaves-the last
being the best. If these houses can be
partially hidden by a slight covering of
brush, or something of the kind, they will
suit the turkeys better.
Whenever they begin to show DISPOSE
ton to wander away to find nests, they
must be constantly kept near these little
houses. If your attention is diverted from
| them for a half hour, especially in the fore
part of the day, one of the flock will prob
ably be missing, and when once they have
made a nest, it is almost impossible to in
duce them to lay elsewhere. This care
e. IL
meantime each Of your hens has selected
her house and began to make her daily
| deposit of an egg.
| Your first trouble is now past. The
eggs should be taken from the nests each
night, and the product of each bird kept
| by itself. The vigor of the mother will
sometimes make days difference in the
Matching; and each turkey should have her
own eggs.
| Four weeks from the day the turkey
commences sitting, the young will begin to
appear. At the outset, they are very
weak, but they will grow stronger without
food for at least twenty-four hours, when,
in the middle of the forenoon, or later in
the day, they should be removed from the
nest and placed in little enclosure, made
by setting up on the edge four boards,
some ten or twelve feet long, in the form
of square. They should be fed with
coarse-ground Indian-meal, mixed with
curdled milk, at the beginning, and at least
every alternate morning for six weeks
Each night, for the first week, they should
be carefully driven into their respective
houses, now removed within the board
enclosure, and securely fastened in by put
ting boards cleated togethey against the
opening. When they are a week or ten
days old, they may be allowed the range of
some lot near the house, on pleasant days,
but should always be driven up and put
into some tight stable and well fed as early
as five o'clock in the afternoon, and never
be let out in the morning until the grass is
nearly if not quite dry, and not at all on
rainy or cold, misty days.
Six weeks after being Matched, they will
need little food outside of what they pick
| up during the day, but your care with re-
gard to driving up must never be relaxed.
Instances have been repeatedly known
where single fox has killed forty young
turkeys in a single night, and the nights
that your turkeys ars left out will be the
nights whereon Reynard will make his
visits.
When they are eight weeks old, the habit
of coming up in the afternoon will be fixed.
| They should then be carefully driven into
roost near the house, and when once they
get accustomed to the roost. and are always
found there at night, you can calculate
with almost absolute certainty the number
Of birds that you will have for the Thanks
giving or Christmas market
| Hearth and Home