Yes, I Flirt With Turkeys!

 There are dog people and there are cat people, me, I'm a poultry person!  For the past several years, I have had a little flock of chickens who have provided me with wonderful fresh eggs and meat.  Yes, I love my chickens, but when I got them, I knew I had to keep things in prospective, so I call them "pets with a purpose". I did learn the hard way not to name them though, so now I just call them "Ladies". Except for the rooster, who being the "cock of the walk", so to speak, I thought  needed a name, and that name is Gilbert.  He is a Buff Orpington, a breed that is very calm and not aggressive, so he should live a very long and happy life.  Unknowingly, the first rooster I got, named Willie, was a  Rhode Island Red.  Too late, I read that they are a very aggressive breed and he loved to attack me whenever I had my back turned.  On more than one occasion I chased Willie around the chicken yard with a board screaming that I was going to kill you little sob  and that he wasn't near so tough when I had a weapon was he!?!?  (Yes, he would make me so mad I would bring out the cuss words)  Once, I looked up for an instant, and saw a couple dozen golfers across the highway, shading the sun from their eyes with their hands and looking my way.  I realized that the chicken yard's fence was full of weeds, therefore they had no idea I was chasing a rooster, for all they knew I was just running around my yard with a board cussing and screaming that I was going to kill someone or something.  I should have been beyond embarrassed, but instead I got a good laugh out of it.  Willie attacked me one time too many and he ended up flavoring a big pot of homemade noodles.

Once you have tasted eggs that are fresh from the nest of hens who get to run around, bask in the sun, scratch in the dirt eating grass and other natural foods, you will never go back to a store bought egg again.  I know, before I got them I thought an egg is an egg, but now I know different.  The guy's out in the shop like to tease me about my "happy chickens".  But when they are lucky enough to receive my surplus eggs they say my "happy eggs" taste awfully good!  Mark, bless his heart, not only puts up with my poultry hobby, he does everything he can to make it easy for me to take care of them.  He has made me a bin so I can have my feed right there and it only takes a few seconds to fill their feeder, and he even put a water hydrant inside their pen to make it easy to water them.  What a guy!  Is it any wonder I love him so much?!?

This year we tried something new.  We raised turkey's.  This picture was taken on May 1st, the day I brought them home.  The above picture, taken this morning, is of one of the Tom's, at four months old.  We ended up with six Tom's and one hen.  Since we were raising them for meat, I guess that is a good thing!   We have got such a kick out of  them!  We can't BELIEVE how much they eat!  We learned they like to eat weeds so every morning we pull weeds out of our garden and take them a couple big handfuls.  It makes pulling weeds so much more enjoyable when you are pulling them for a reason!  Once they see us coming, we hear them gobbling for us to hurry up!   We had heard they could get mean, especially the Tom's, but they are so gentle and tame. When I am feeding them they come and stand about a foot from me and watch what I am doing.  I have even got in a pet or two, but I can't say they enjoyed it, they tolerated it if they couldn't get away from me.  As the Tom's get closer to maturity, whenever I go out to take care of them, they puff themselves out and spread their tail feathers, turning this way and that way to show off the whole time I'm out there.  I go on and on telling them how handsome they are, and I swear,  they eat it up and try to puff themselves up even bigger!

 The kids have asked why we have them, isn't it cheaper to just go buy one at the grocery store and a whole lot easier?  The answer is YES and YES!  I do think it will be nice knowing the turkey I am eating this winter will have been fed no antibiotics or anything else unnatural, and that they spent their life in an uncrowded area, and like the chickens, out in the sunshine and fresh air, scratching in the dirt and eating greens and other natural things.  But the way they have eaten in the past and the way I am sure they will eat in the next month or so, they will cost about double what one would cost in the grocery store!  But who can put a price on the fun we've had raising them!

Although I do keep things in perspective, reminding myself they are "pets with a purpose",  I don't at all look forward to the dirty deed that comes before you clean them.  I don't mind the butchering process once the deed is done, but thankfully, hubby dear knows the first part is hard on me and he is willing to do it for me.  But as the turkeys get bigger, and we know the day is coming closer, both of us are beginning to realize getting one of these forty to fifty pound birds to the table is not going to be quite as easy as it is with a chicken.  But I imagine with the help on an old homesteading book we will get it figured out, and if that fails, there is always the internet.  Come Thanksgiving, when I host my extended family for dinner, I'll feel that much more like a pilgrim/pioneer, knowing my Turkey, Potatoes, Sweet potatoes, Green Beans, Apple's for pie, Broccoli, and Corn will have all came from our own back yard and were grown with no pesticides, no herbicides, no hormones, and no chemical fertilizers, just lots and lots of love!