Has Anyone Experienced This?

[the Old Rebel]

My turkey tom, Tom, raised two orphan guineas by himself. Has anyone ever heard of or experienced such a thing??

I thought turkey toms would kill even their own offspring. I know I had a crossbreed tom that killed two of his babies before we took him out of the pen.

I've always known my Tommy was exceptional, but this beat all I've ever seen. His wife, Susan, hatched the eggs after the guinea mama abandoned them. But the babies were too small. They could fit through the poultry wire on the turkey pen. They kept getting out and then lost calling until I came to find them. So I kept them in the house for three or four weeks. When I took them back to Susan, Tom ended up raising them!!

Here is a picture of them on the roost. Tom has his wings over them keeping them warm.

They grew up thinking they were turkeys. They ACTED like turkeys. Here is a picture of them with Tom.

I ended up having to take Jacob out of the turkey pen after Susan killed Isaac. It was my fault. She eventually had babies of her own. Apparently Isaac was messing with her babies and she killed him. So I put Jacob with the guineas. For the longest time, though, when we would let the guineas out to free range, Jacob would run to where Tom was and stay with him. It took him FOREVER to learn how to be a guinea.

I thought this whole thing was just really neat and wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

 

[longranger]

That is just fantastic. Hope I have a great gentle papa tom like yours some day. He is a handsome devil too.

 

[chickensioux]

][[[oooooookoihhhhuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (Robert walked across the keyboard)

Great Pic!!!!! I love it!!!!!!

 

[M To The Maxx]

Awww that is cute!

 

[Germaine_11.20]

That is so sweet. What a great experience for you.

 

[cashela]

That was a great pic.

Being "new" to turkey breeds, what breed is Tom? He's very handsome

 

[chickenannie]

That is amazing! And the pic is adorable!

Tonight, for the first time, one of my other turkeys (who normally sleeps in a turkey coop) flew up to where I have all my 10 turkey babies sleeping with their momma. Well, somehow, the "new" turkey "stole" over a couple of the babies, and now there are some babies under her wings and some babies under the mother's. I was wondering the same thing! How did they communicate about that?

 

[the Old Rebel]

I am not absolutely sure about Tom's lineage. I THINK he is a bourbon red/ Eastern wild cross. My friends had bourbon reds and royal palms. They let them free range and two of the bourbon red hens made nests in the woods. We believe that either a wild turkey hen shared the nests with the domestic hens or a wild turkey tom bred the bourbon red hens. My friends collected the eggs and the two hens were setting them. A neighbor's dog killed one of the hens and so terrorized the other one that she flew far away and never came back. My friends rushed the eggs down to my incubator.

When the babies hatched and started growing, my friend kept saying, "Those are not our turkeys", because they looked like wild turkeys. But their coloring is prettier than most wild turkeys. And when I bred Tom to a bourbon red hen, ALL of the offspring were bourbon reds, which led us to believe that Tom has both bourbon red and wild turkey in him.

He is GORGEOUS, isn't he??!!!!!!!?

As to how any creatures communicate is beyond my understanding, but there is no question that they do. I think most of them are truly a whole lot smarter than us humans.

 

[jjthink]

The photo of Tommy with the guineas is so wonderful!

I am sorry about Isaac - very sad

JJ

 

[ivan3]

Excellent shot! (Guess that's one way to attempt to `socialize' guineas

)