Okay, so obviously turkeys aren't chickens, but I wasn't sure where else to post this and I'd really like to share some memories I have of my two Broad-breasted White turkeys, Peter and Pumkin. I got them last year to raise for eating, and this weekend they'll be headed off to freezer camp. We've had them since last July, I think.
Anyway, I've never raised turkeys before, and this was quite a learning experience for me. I'll start at the beginning:
Last spring, I got a couple of turkey poults for my boyfriend to raise. He works two jobs and is almost never home during the day, and one day while he was at work, a dog got into the yard and killed both poults. I knew he still wanted turkeys, since they're a bit of an annual tradition for him. So, I went to the feed store and picked out another poult. Only this time, he stayed with me.
I was determined to help my BF get his turkeys, and it seemed that in order to do that, I'd need to get them large enough that they had a chance against predators before going to my BF's house. The poult I brought home was a little male (I hoped) When I looked in the bin at the store, he was one of two or three babies running along a divider in the middle of the trough and teasing the ducklings on the other side.
I found that it wasn't difficult to get him to fall asleep while I was holding him. More than that, I could "talk" to him and he would cheep at me in his sleep. My mom insisted that we name him "Peter". Several days later, I took him outside and saw a sight that made me smile:
He didn't even have all of his feathers! He sure thought he was hot stuff.
A couple of weeks went by, and I worried that my little turkey was lonely. He spent his time with three BR chicks, but it was obvious that he didn't quite fit in. Thus, I made a return trip to the store and found a friend for him. He was very happy about this.
Pumkin (so dubbed by my mother) was, we hoped, a girl. She was very shy at first and preferred to stay away from the little flock, despite Peter's enthusiastic company. But after a week or two, she warmed up to her new family and started to hang out with them. Que the start of the troublemakers.
While chickens are splendid to keep, turkeys have a set of rules all their own. We watched with pleasure as they grew and became more adventurous, even if some of their antics made us wince.
They love their water, especially fresh water. Apparently taking a lesson from me, they started to help themselves to the hose whenever I had it on to fill water dishes.
They would also run toward me on sight and follow me around the yard. When I went inside the house, they couldn't figure out where I'd gone, or why they couldn't come. Sometimes they'd camp out and wait for me to return.
Or attempt to catch sight of me through the door and give me their cutest faces.
We also found out that turkeys LOVE food. Any kind of food, really. Especially if it was food that the humans had. Or forbidden food - like the peaches on our peach tree. At first, they were only nibbling on the few stray peaches that had fallen to the ground. I let this go, as there was an abundant harvest, anyhow. Big mistake. What do turkeys learn when they get ground peaches? Why, that tree peaches are even better, of course!
They would spy a peach on the tree, run over and bite at it until it fell, then move on to the next fruity bounty overhead. Needless to say, I ended up harvesting peaches a little earlier than I'd planned.
I remember one day when I was sitting on the back porch and eating one of these peaches while enjoying the sunshine with my babies. It gave me quite a surprise when Peter snuck around behind me, hopped into my lap, and attempted to take a bite out of my peach! Having just taken a bite myself -- and being too stunned at this brazen little bird's actions -- I moved the peach out of his reach, like any sensible human. Peter was not one to be thwarted, however. Without missing a beat, he turned and took a bite out of the chunk of peach that was in my mouth. He got shoved off my lap after this, of course.
Not too terribly long later, an uncle of mine found a stray turkey poult in his garden. To this day, we still have no idea where she came from, nor how far she traveled to get into my uncle's back yard. My uncle offered her to me and, excited about having a bronze turkey, I gladly accepted.
I named her Betty, since she was a bit startling to look at and, honestly, reminded me of the show "Ugly Betty". She was extremely skittish, and the other turkeys avoided her as a stranger for a little while. But, Betty seemed contented to stay with the chickens, and eventually Peter and Pumkin got used to her. Thanks to her arrival -- and the addition of a three-foot fence in our back yard -- we adopted the name "the game preserve".
As the turkeys grew, they took on a number of jobs. Chicken herders. Walking garbage disposals. Crowd control. Alarm clocks. Lunch thieves. Eating anywhere within their reach was a daring feat, especially when they learned that they could jump.
If I didn't come out into the yard when they wanted, Peter and Pumkin would take up whistling loudly in the preserve until I came to see what they wanted -- which was usually more food. I learned to mimic some of their sounds and talk to them, calling them when I wanted them to come, warning them to quit it when they got an attitude .... and getting a warning whenever someone they didn't know was approaching.
I discovered yet another fun fact about turkeys: They make mean drunks. The flock enjoyed eating the fresh crab apples that fell off of our tree, but they didn't get them all right away. Some of the apples would hide in the grass and ferment. The turkeys, always game to try something new, found out how to find them one day and gorged. And after a little bit, they both began to get red in the face. Then they puffed up and began to posture. And then, they started to squabble. I stepped in and broke it up, of course.
Autumn passed and winter came. By now, Betty had gone from being the ugly duckling to a very pretty girl. Her name was changed to Brown Betty.
Peter had been working on his display for a little while. Neither Betty nor Pumkin were quite sure what to think of this.
As was evidenced by the way they kept skirting him when he'd fluff up.
Good boy, Peter. You just keep trying. Poor guy -- after half an hour of hard work, he couldn't figure out why they weren't swooning and falling at his feet.
It was a little while before it happened, but Pumkin decided that she wanted to try playing this flirting game. Peter didn't know what to make of this. Pumkin would circle him, dance in front of him, snuggle, and even back up to him and wait. Poor Peter still didn't get it. About the best he managed to do was to get very excited and boot Pumkin in the rump .... much to my amusement.
And just today, I came upon a sight.
You see, when they were much smaller, the turkeys liked to jump into the feed barrel when I would open it. They haven't done this in a while, and I figured it was because they were too fat. Weeell.........I guess Pumpkin figured out how to get in again, thanks to the human forgetting to put the lid on. Between hoarking down grain and giving a very upset Peter smug, dirty looks, she seemed to be having quite a time. When I fished her out, she was so stuffed that she couldn't even act grumpy toward him. (Don't worry, she's okay)
Well.......that's about it. This turned into a short novel, even though I've tried to cut parts out so I don't put anyone to sleep. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! And thanks for sharing some memories with me
Anyway, I've never raised turkeys before, and this was quite a learning experience for me. I'll start at the beginning:
Last spring, I got a couple of turkey poults for my boyfriend to raise. He works two jobs and is almost never home during the day, and one day while he was at work, a dog got into the yard and killed both poults. I knew he still wanted turkeys, since they're a bit of an annual tradition for him. So, I went to the feed store and picked out another poult. Only this time, he stayed with me.
I was determined to help my BF get his turkeys, and it seemed that in order to do that, I'd need to get them large enough that they had a chance against predators before going to my BF's house. The poult I brought home was a little male (I hoped) When I looked in the bin at the store, he was one of two or three babies running along a divider in the middle of the trough and teasing the ducklings on the other side.
I found that it wasn't difficult to get him to fall asleep while I was holding him. More than that, I could "talk" to him and he would cheep at me in his sleep. My mom insisted that we name him "Peter". Several days later, I took him outside and saw a sight that made me smile:
He didn't even have all of his feathers! He sure thought he was hot stuff.
A couple of weeks went by, and I worried that my little turkey was lonely. He spent his time with three BR chicks, but it was obvious that he didn't quite fit in. Thus, I made a return trip to the store and found a friend for him. He was very happy about this.
Pumkin (so dubbed by my mother) was, we hoped, a girl. She was very shy at first and preferred to stay away from the little flock, despite Peter's enthusiastic company. But after a week or two, she warmed up to her new family and started to hang out with them. Que the start of the troublemakers.
While chickens are splendid to keep, turkeys have a set of rules all their own. We watched with pleasure as they grew and became more adventurous, even if some of their antics made us wince.
They love their water, especially fresh water. Apparently taking a lesson from me, they started to help themselves to the hose whenever I had it on to fill water dishes.
They would also run toward me on sight and follow me around the yard. When I went inside the house, they couldn't figure out where I'd gone, or why they couldn't come. Sometimes they'd camp out and wait for me to return.
Or attempt to catch sight of me through the door and give me their cutest faces.
We also found out that turkeys LOVE food. Any kind of food, really. Especially if it was food that the humans had. Or forbidden food - like the peaches on our peach tree. At first, they were only nibbling on the few stray peaches that had fallen to the ground. I let this go, as there was an abundant harvest, anyhow. Big mistake. What do turkeys learn when they get ground peaches? Why, that tree peaches are even better, of course!
They would spy a peach on the tree, run over and bite at it until it fell, then move on to the next fruity bounty overhead. Needless to say, I ended up harvesting peaches a little earlier than I'd planned.
I remember one day when I was sitting on the back porch and eating one of these peaches while enjoying the sunshine with my babies. It gave me quite a surprise when Peter snuck around behind me, hopped into my lap, and attempted to take a bite out of my peach! Having just taken a bite myself -- and being too stunned at this brazen little bird's actions -- I moved the peach out of his reach, like any sensible human. Peter was not one to be thwarted, however. Without missing a beat, he turned and took a bite out of the chunk of peach that was in my mouth. He got shoved off my lap after this, of course.
Not too terribly long later, an uncle of mine found a stray turkey poult in his garden. To this day, we still have no idea where she came from, nor how far she traveled to get into my uncle's back yard. My uncle offered her to me and, excited about having a bronze turkey, I gladly accepted.
I named her Betty, since she was a bit startling to look at and, honestly, reminded me of the show "Ugly Betty". She was extremely skittish, and the other turkeys avoided her as a stranger for a little while. But, Betty seemed contented to stay with the chickens, and eventually Peter and Pumkin got used to her. Thanks to her arrival -- and the addition of a three-foot fence in our back yard -- we adopted the name "the game preserve".
As the turkeys grew, they took on a number of jobs. Chicken herders. Walking garbage disposals. Crowd control. Alarm clocks. Lunch thieves. Eating anywhere within their reach was a daring feat, especially when they learned that they could jump.
If I didn't come out into the yard when they wanted, Peter and Pumkin would take up whistling loudly in the preserve until I came to see what they wanted -- which was usually more food. I learned to mimic some of their sounds and talk to them, calling them when I wanted them to come, warning them to quit it when they got an attitude .... and getting a warning whenever someone they didn't know was approaching.
I discovered yet another fun fact about turkeys: They make mean drunks. The flock enjoyed eating the fresh crab apples that fell off of our tree, but they didn't get them all right away. Some of the apples would hide in the grass and ferment. The turkeys, always game to try something new, found out how to find them one day and gorged. And after a little bit, they both began to get red in the face. Then they puffed up and began to posture. And then, they started to squabble. I stepped in and broke it up, of course.
Autumn passed and winter came. By now, Betty had gone from being the ugly duckling to a very pretty girl. Her name was changed to Brown Betty.
Peter had been working on his display for a little while. Neither Betty nor Pumkin were quite sure what to think of this.
As was evidenced by the way they kept skirting him when he'd fluff up.
Good boy, Peter. You just keep trying. Poor guy -- after half an hour of hard work, he couldn't figure out why they weren't swooning and falling at his feet.
It was a little while before it happened, but Pumkin decided that she wanted to try playing this flirting game. Peter didn't know what to make of this. Pumkin would circle him, dance in front of him, snuggle, and even back up to him and wait. Poor Peter still didn't get it. About the best he managed to do was to get very excited and boot Pumkin in the rump .... much to my amusement.
And just today, I came upon a sight.
You see, when they were much smaller, the turkeys liked to jump into the feed barrel when I would open it. They haven't done this in a while, and I figured it was because they were too fat. Weeell.........I guess Pumpkin figured out how to get in again, thanks to the human forgetting to put the lid on. Between hoarking down grain and giving a very upset Peter smug, dirty looks, she seemed to be having quite a time. When I fished her out, she was so stuffed that she couldn't even act grumpy toward him. (Don't worry, she's okay)
Well.......that's about it. This turned into a short novel, even though I've tried to cut parts out so I don't put anyone to sleep. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! And thanks for sharing some memories with me
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