My turkeys have started to lay their eggs and I have been collecting them for the incubator. I have three young hens and they are giving me 2-3 eggs every other day.
I am going to try to hatch approximately 15 eggs for the first go-round in the incubator. Meanwhile...over the next 28 days whie the eggs are in the incubator, the girls will continue to lay. I only have one incubator, so I am going to leave the eggs in the pen with the birds for the next four weeks. Hopefully, one of the turkey hens will have enough maternal instincts to sit on a clutch of eggs. The good thing is...they are a heritage breed (Bourbon Red), so all of their instincts have not likely been bred out of them and they will figure out how to sit on a nest. I will keep you posted!
The second fun thing today is that I planted four varieties of potatoes...
...in old feed bags. I did some sweet potatoes in containers last year, but wanted to give regular potatoes a try this year, too.
This is my first foray into potato bags...so there will definitely be a learning curve. These are just a few of the bags, but I wanted to give you a nice representation. They are in my living room tonight because it has been getting really cold here at night and everything I have read says that potatoes like warmer soil.
A few of the things that I learned today (and, as a result, I had to dump and reload my potato bags) were:
- Put rocks in the bottom of the bags. These will perform a two fold purpose. In addition to keeping them balanced and upright when outside, it will also enhance drainage.
- Put a layer of landscape fabric between the rocks and the soil. This will keep the soil from slipping down between the rocks and clogging up the drainage holes. (You will need to cut holes around the bottom of the bags to allow them to drain properly.)
Happy Easter!
