Although I did not blog right away about the treats, I did make and test them :) The Turkeys devoured them, the hens couldn't care less about them, the chickens have not been tested. Here I will show pictures now, I am working on producing a fun video of the turkeys enjoying the treats. I got this recipe out of one of my many magazines, this one might have been from 'backyard poultry' which is a funny magazine with some good information if you want to raise birds. The ingredients are 1/2 cup hot water with 1 package of gelatin (4 packages come in a box which will cost about $1-$1.70 depending on the store), add this to a bowl of about 3 cups of scratch grains (a 50# bag is about $14), then pack it into containers with or without string to hang. I put my on string with a metal piece to hold it on, but hens would have probably prefered it on the ground. Here are some pics;
 |
| it was pretty fast and easy to do with some recycled small containers I found in my pantry. |
 |
| The shape kept well and they hung sturdy in the hen pen where they weren't eaten. The turkeys tore it to pieces in minutes! |
 |
| At first the turkeys didn't know what to do, but once they found out the treats didn't last much longer than a few minutes. Which was NOT what I wanted. I was hoping to entertain them so they'd stop fighting so much. I had read to clip their beaks slightly when they are young but that seemed cruel so I didn't. MISTAKE! They do far more damage to eachother than a little clip would have done them. Lesson learned. In the meantime, I got them 'Pecker Wrecker' which is the same type of idea as this but had abrassive additives to dull their beaks. They are eating the Pecker Wrecker but I don' tknow if its effecting their pecking yet. Too early to tell! |
No comments:
Post a Comment