help, turkey hates my four-yr-old

[thaiturkey]

I don't think that turkeys and young children mix. The behaviour of a child could cause a turkey to react and the small size of a child is an invitation to a tom to show his status. We have been through this previously on BYC. Turkeys have sharp beaks and kids have soft eyeballs at an accessible height for said beaks.

It's sad to read that a turkey should be killed or locked up permanently because it does what it's supposed to do as a turkey. More appropriate would be to keep kids away from animals that might attack or don't like to be chased or mauled. I would add big dogs to the list. If a kid can't be kept away from animals that might harm him, don't have the animals at all. It's fair neither to the child nor to the animal.

 

[ivan3]

What thaiturkey said.

Our turks have never behaved in aggressive manner. However, they remain locked up when the grandkids are here. The only exception is when hens are `presenting' for anyone/thing and, even then, one of us is right there with them.

There is a certain degree of unpredictability we're not willing to quantify by exposing the kids and seeing what happens (eye surgery is expensive).

Toms, somewhat like roosters, can be set off by objects/events beyond my ken, e.g., roo very easy going with my black mudboots, roo engaging in death match with my black mudboots with yellow stripe around the sole.

Grandkids get to feed bugs to the turks through the welded wire fencing.

 

[MandyH]

Been there, done this. It will only get worse when Spring comes.

 

[Ema]

I was just talking to someone about an incident with her grandchild today. the lady down the street who has 3 turkeys had her grandkids over a few weekends back and one of the turkeys chased her little granddaughter around terrorized the marbles out of her and I guess she started crying cause she was really afraid.

the lady walked in the house came back out and gave her grandkid a bear horn. told her to go stand in the middle and wait for the bad turkey to come towards her and then press the button......it scared the poop out of the turkey and now leaves her well enough alone!!!