Girlfriends for Toms :)

[khittikhatt]

Last summer I bought 3 poults (I couldn't resist!) and they all turned out to be Toms! The one was really mean and always beating the other two up so he's found another home. My two toms are great fun and good buddies but they gobble ALL-THE-TIME. I've been looking high and low for some hens, but nobody has any for sale around here, so I'm planning on getting a bigger group of poults and keeping the hens. Now here's the question, will hens make them happy? Will things get better with the gobbling? Should I just let them be happy bachelor guys? It's not like I'm trying to start a turkey ranch or anything, I just want happiness

Thanks!

 

[ivan3]

Are you way out in the silence of the desert, or located near a lot of human generated noise? We're in the woods. Our toms will greet the dawn, briefly exchange `greetings' with the neighbor's toms (through the ten acres of woods to their property), will talk to even the most distant of sirens. The only way we can make them gobble is to whistle a song (they hate that). Anything out of the ordinary will incur a few minutes of vocalizing. They are otherwise pretty quiet. Ours only gobble `constantly' - intensely for more than a couple of minutes - when there is a pred nearby approaching run (strange human/turkey(s) in wood line will also provoke this response).

If you get more, you might end up with even more gobbling/yelping (depends on what is currently setting your toms off). The presence of hens will probably take the toms' attention off whatever is bothering them now, and they'll be `challenge trilling' each other before sparring for breeding rights (depending on your setup this might be more trouble than it's worth).

Any airport or mining/drilling in the area? These guys are more sensitive to infrasound (low freq) than humans. We know when the B2's are running training patterns, in the vicinity, out of Whiteman AFB. Turks will sound off in the middle of the night (we'll hear nothing until the crew starts dumping fuel into the engines - sounds like a busted gas pipeline burning away at a distance - otherwise they are silent on the approach - to all but the turkeys).