Turkey hissing?

[Athiena14]

I was holding one of my babies earlier and it was making a hissing like sound every once in a while. Best way I could describe it is like a cat hiss. I know geese hiss when mad, but do turkeys?

 

[R2elk]

I was holding one of my babies earlier and it was making a hissing like sound every once in a while. Best way I could describe it is like a cat hiss. I know geese hiss when mad, but do turkeys?

Turkeys can make very many different sounds and hissing is just one of them.

 

[Athiena14]

Turkeys can make very many different sounds and hissing is just one of them.

Just never heard of them hissing before lol

 

[R2elk]

Just never heard of them hissing before lol

Usually when I get hissed at it is because I am trying to steal eggs or poults from under a sitting turkey hen.

 

[Amos-Moses]

My hen hisses at me every night when I pick her up to put her in the coop. I think she is just voicing her discontent with me

 

[R2elk]

My hen hisses at me every night when I pick her up to put her in the coop. I think she is just voicing her discontent with me

I don't understand why you feel the need to pick your turkeys up to put them in the coop. Turkeys herd very well. That was the method used to get turkeys to market in the early days. A pair of sticks used as arm extensions is very effective.

 

[sfgwife]

One of our ladies hisses every night as we shoo them into the coop.

 

[Amos-Moses]

I don't understand why you feel the need to pick your turkeys up to put them in the coop. Turkeys herd very well. That was the method used to get turkeys to market in the early days. A pair of sticks used as arm extensions is very effective.

Being new to turkeys, my herding attempts went poorly in the beginning. I got in the habit of waiting on the sun to set, then picking the birds up in the dark (so that they would not run) and putting them in the coop. With only 2 turkeys, this wasn't too inconvenient. They have started to learn what my presence at sunset means, and the tom now puts himself up most of the time. The hen began to follow suit, however recently I discovered that their coop was in a flood zone and had to put their coop on stilts. The hen is pinioned and has trouble hopping up onto the coop platform when she is stressed (e.g. when I am encouraging her to go home), so many times she gets frustrated and just hides under the coop or runs off into the surrounding thicket. Thus I often avoid the frustration and just pick her up. It isn't too much trouble and saves a lot of time. I do expect her to get better at climbing up there though, and look forward to her putting herself up on a regular basis. I suppose I should be more patient and let her climb up there on her own more often, since picking her up is probably just prolonging the process of her learning to go home on her own each evening.

However, if I didn't feel the need to pick my turkeys up each evening I wouldn't have been able to contribute my invaluable input on turkeys hissing!