Wild Things

As you may have heard, we have a flock of turkeys in the back yard. We started with a tom (that's Major Tom to you!) and his four hens. Tom and two of his hens are a breed called "Bourbon Red". This is a lovely heritage breed of turkey. The third hen is a "Blue Slate". This is another type of heritage breed turkey. I say heritage breed because these breeds were developed for certain color characteristics and can reproduce naturally, given the chance. Most turkeys raised for dining room tables are "broad breasted" varieties - that grow much larger and faster than heritage breeds. They don't really have the longevity of heritage breeds. And they are so large they cannot reproduce or even fly or roost.

Now that you've had your turkey education, I'll tell you a little something about those heritage breeds. They can fly and are much better foragers than the broad breasted varieties. They are also not as confused and dumb as broad breasted turkeys. They are a bit more akin to their "wild" turkey cousins.

The other morning I looked out the back yard and saw at least 20 baby turkeys and 2 hens strutting through our back yard. At first, I thought it was our turkeys. But you might notice that these guys are brown to black color with barring on the wings. They are very intelligent, cautious and clever. They were nibbling up all sorts of delights (including my blackberries).

There is something magical about having our yard chosen by this wild flock. I guess they felt right at home here with all the other gobbling and barking from our flock.

After a quick snack, they were ready for a drink.

Michael says, "Hey! You know those baby turkeys hatched out by our Blue Slate hen while we were in China? Did you notice that 5 of them are much darker than the others? Did you notice that they are getting barring on their wings? Did you notice that they behave a little differently from our other turkeys? I think they are part wild turkey!"

Here is a photo of one of our little wildlings that hatched out. Sounds like we have been having wild turkey visits for a while now. And some sneaky wild tom (rival to our Major Tom) must have jumped on our Blue Slate hen last spring.

Really, this explains so much! So many turkey shenanigans!

For contrast you can see below the lighter color turkey on the left is a mix of Bourbon Red and Blue Slate. The darker turkey on the right is a mix of Wild Turkey and Blue Slate.

Michael really is the best darn poultry farmer ever.

Speaking of Michael, the girls and I asked him to do something for us the other day that just made him put his foot down. He said, "That is NOT my job. Look, if it's heavy, broken or dead, then it is my job. Your request does not fall into those categories, therefore, it's not my job." 

We are still laughing about that one. Truly, those are his jobs around here (in addition to his day job of keeping this Ark afloat). And for that, we are also grateful.