Turkey Love

She always looks away when he displays for her. 

I guess she's just not that into you, Tom. 

Meanwhile, Back in the Barn

We did borrow a ram last December, so we are hoping some (if not all) of our sheep are pregnant, but how do you tell? Is that fluff, or little lambs inside? Only time will tell! 

The one on the left is called "Little Lamb." This is what happens when
you let a four year old name your animals. Now, if Little Lamb
has babies, what do we call them? Little Lamb's Little Lamb?

The guinea hen came to live with us last summer. That's right. Our farm is so nice, other people's animals defect, and come to live with us! She's a bit of an emotional nightmare in winter, though. I don't think she bargained on being cooped up for the winter. I keep the door shut when it's below freezing out, so they can stay warm. I did open it a while back, just to let her go, if she wanted to, but she came back in at night. So, I guess she's happy, sort of? I couldn't get a good picture, because she was running around, throwing one of her fits. Just not a winter person, I guess. You can see all of the chickens cowering in the corner, staying out of her way. 

And this is my current favorite chicken: 

Nesting in our shredded junk mail. 

Mr. and Mrs. Turkey are spending the winter perched up by the sunny window, chillaxin'. In the summer, they make a terrible racket and terrorize any child who dares come near them, but in the winter, they are quiet and mellow. They save their drama for other seasons. They seem grateful to be fed, this time of year. Of course, we see hundreds of their wild cousins, roaming around, looking for food, so I suppose they have it good. So what if we eat their babies? 

That's the infamous Tom Turkey on the right, attacker of trucks.
But if you compliment him, he leaves you alone. This seems like
it cannot be true, but it is. Little Z figured it out. She told me,
"Just tell him what nice feathers he has, and he'll stop gobbling
at you." Sure enough, it worked. Everyone just needs a kind word,
now and then. So now whenever he gets upset,
"What a good turkey you are, such pretty feathers."
"Hmph," says Tom, and stands proud and quiet.

And, last of all, the bunnies. We didn't really know how the bunnies would fare in the barn, since they were house pets, but they just grew thick coats and burrowed into the wood shavings. They seem quite content. Also, I figured out they like orange peelings. Since I eat about two oranges a day all winter, this is a good thing.

Marshmallow eats her orange peels. 

Coming soon (I hope): baby chicks. Due to hatch this Sunday. 

Happy Thanksgiving

He's really a smart turkey to think he's a sheep this time of year.

Just in case you're wondering: I didn't butcher him. Tom Turkey is still out with the sheep! So he has something to be thankful for.

Comment of the day: I see you have a turkey there with them sheep...

We have a turkey out with the sheep. It's a long story.

The guys from up on the hill stopped by today. They were wondering if we had a Jacob ram we could loan them.

"No," and we talked for awhile.

"I noticed you've got a turkey out there with them sheep. Is that a Bourban Red?"

"Yep."

"Why is he out there? You couldn't catch him, or...?"

"I just needed a place to put him."



A few hours later- Ding dong! Doorbell rings again. It's another neighbour farmer, asking if I want to come up to his place and get some hay for the sheep.

"I noticed you've got a turkey out there," he says while loading the hay into the truck, later.

"Yeah. They crush the eggs, sometimes, when you leave the males and females together, so I put him out with the sheep. Now he thinks he's a sheep."

"Oh. I thought maybe you couldn't catch him or something."

"No, I could. I mean, I can't now. I mean, I could, but- Yeah."

You'd think people had never seen a heritage turkey living with primitive horned sheep before. People seem to have turkeys on the brain today. I can't imagine why!

The Turkey Who Thinks He is a Sheep

One of these things is not like the other.



Tom Turkey thinks he is a sheep.

Last spring, Mrs. Turkey laid some eggs. We had had a terrible time hatching turkey eggs, and I read somewhere that male turkeys will sometimes stomp on the eggs. I didn't want that to happen, so I decided to separate them, and I just put Tom Turkey outside with the sheep. I did not give this any kind of thought at all, really. I just knew I had to separate those eggs from Tom Turkey.

At first, Tom still acted like a turkey, perching on a high point at night and gobbling to the wild turkeys in the forest. Slowly, though, he began to act more and more like a sheep. He started sleeping on the ground, next to the other sheep. When I rotated the sheep's pasture, he trotted along with the herd and went right along with them. And now, he just seems to think he's a sheep.

I don't feed him any turkey food. He eats grass and bugs. In this sense, he's the perfect turkey. He forages for everything. I bet he would be mighty tasty, but my Thanksgiving includes no plans to butcher Tom Turkey. I've grown fond of him.

Two days ago, I rotated the sheep's pasture again, and Tom got separated from the little herd. When Tom realized all of his friends were gone, he quickly flew over to the sheep. Seeing a giant bird flying straight towards them, all of the sheep stampeded in the opposite direction, with Tom flying after them, screaming "gobble gobble gobble!" or "Wait, my friends, wait for me! Where are you going? Wait for me!" Everyone calmed down once Tom landed.

I don't know how he reconciles this flying thing with being a sheep. Although we might count sheep flying over our beds at night, in reality, a sheep can't fly. But Tom Turkey can. And then there's the obvious: Tom could just fly away, if he wanted to. But he doesn't. Because he's a sheep.

Creativity

Joel Salatin wrote that if you ever doubted the creativity of farmers, you should just look at the variety of gate latches they create!

Here is my contribution today:



Yep, yessiree, things are pretty darned exciting around here! No poop stories, though. Not that I mind.

I got the sheep into that new pasture- I finally finished the fence I started at the beginning of the summer. One of the sheep literally leapt for joy as she pranced into the new meadow. I didn't get that on tape, but I did take a picture of them later, happily munching wildflowers (and of Tom Turkey who now believes he's a sheep, of course):



Ah, the life pastoral.

We're just friends.

I put the baby chickens, now three weeks old, in with Tom Turkey and Mrs. Turkey. Mrs. Turkey is like a zombie, sitting on her eggs, so she didn't care, but Tom Turkey didn't seem entirely comfortable with fifteen baby chickens in his pad. I decided it was time to take Tom Turkey out of the barn and put him out to pasture again.

Normally, when I catch a turkey, it poops on my head and tries to claw my eyes out. For this reason, I have a method that works well for me: I grab the turkey by the legs and then carry it upside down to wherever I need to take it. I wouldn't take a subway train or anything, but it works for a short walk.

So, I went into the turkey pen and picked up Tom Turkey by the legs. He did not resist. He did not peck. Tom Turkey simply hung there, upside down, by my side, and craned his head around so he could see the world right side up. As I walked him out to the fenced in pasture with the sheep, I noticed how immensely soft his feathers were against my leg. I never noticed that about a turkey before. Probably because they are usually busy trying to kill me.

Once inside the pasture, I laid him down on the ground. He stood up, looked around, and said "gobblgobblgobble."

I went back inside and ate dinner. I remarked to BAH how Tom Turkey didn't give me any trouble at all. This from the animal who repeatedly attacked his own reflection in the side of our truck last summer.

"He's your pet now," said BAH. "You have a pet turkey."

Sure enough, when I went out to the pasture later, he greeted me at the fence. Tom fanned out his handsome feathers and said,

"Gobble gobble gobble gobble!"



"Um, hi," I said.

I've since decided that having Tom Turkey as a pet is somewhat like going to the prom with your gay cousin. It may not be what you had envisioned for yourself, in your romantic projections for your future life, but in the end, it's the unconventional friends who are the most fun. And I've never been a dog person, anyway.

I guess the main difference would be that you wouldn't kill your cousin and eat him for Thanksgiving. That's the only difference, really.