Ok look. I don't see where this argument is going. My turkey is dead, she's been dead for two years. I posted this to vent and maybe get a little understanding from people who have birds and warn against this kind of situation. And now, reading all these cold and dead comments about legality and permits is just making me feel worse. Yeah sure she would have been better off in the wild but again her mother was killed, she had no chance. She lived happily in our back yard for almost a year. We couldn't release her because she had no flock keep safe in and no concept of predators. We could have turned the eggs over to some rehabilitation four counties over but honestly we didn't think they would hatch, but we gave it our best shot because we just couldn't stomach just leaving them to die in the cold or throwing them away. I'm mean honestly could you stand to do that after you killed their mother? And about the eggs my mom told me that she's heard of people hatching and releasing turkeys, and I found some "rio grande wild turkey poults" online, I'm not getting a clear answer on releasing them, but I asked my mom again and she said that a few people she knew with quite a bit of property have released them and they do well on their own, and they are native to the region anyway but their numbers aren't great.
Either way, we should give everything a chance. Even game wardens think so. When I was younger and we lived on a ranch we had a game warden give us a fawn he found on the side of the road, he said he didn't have time to take it to a rehabilitation center so he'd just have to leave it or kill it, so he left it will us to give it the best chance. He knew it was technically illegal to do so, but he had a freaking heart, so may have broken a law but who cares because that fawn lived. I can't remember how long we had him but he wandered off after he started getting antlers (we never had him penned up, he came and he went as he pleased.)
Again, I hope some of you arguing that we should have gotten in trouble would still do the kind thing in my situation. Those laws are in place to prevent exploitation, not really to prevent true compassion.