Turkeys Participating in No Shave November

I know we haven't shared much about our turkeys, but I wanted to write a quick post about them since they will be getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. We will be sharing more about that later.

I went out last night to shut the door on the barn and noticed something a little strange on one of the turkey's chest. It looked like a bushy weed got stuck in its feathers. I wondered if any others had the same thing and so I checked them out. One of the other Toms did. This is what it looked like.

(Sorry the pics aren't the best. I took them this morning when I let them out and I didn't want to fuss about trying to get good lighting for a picture of the turkeys at 6:30 in the morning)

When I got back inside I consulted my expert that knows everything (Google) and found out that it is a "beard". I had no idea that turkeys grew beards! Granted I did not grow up in a hunting family or on a farm, so I was never expose to a live turkey. I guess that they decided to not shave them this month for No Shave November.

Some other things that you might not know about turkeys.

• Turkeys can fly - The domesticated turkey that most people eat for Thanksgiving can't because it is bred to be so big, but wild or heritage breeds can.
• The "Butterball" turkeys that you find at the store have been bred so that their breast meat is much larger. As a result of this they can't mate on their own and have to be artificially inseminated. Not the way nature intended it to be which is why we chose a heritage breed.
• Ben Franklin has been quoted as saying that the turkey should be the national bird. This is not entirely true. He wasn't happy with the Bald Eagle because he said that it wasn't a respectable bird and the turkey was more respectable. smithsonianmag.com has more information on this.
• Supposedly their gobble can be heard a mile away. I am not sure ours are that loud, but it is loud. And fun to talk back to them when they are doing it. Our neighbor kids would get them going from their yard.
• When you say a kid is being a turkey because they are getting into trouble, you are spot on. Turkeys are curious creatures (a lot like kids) and they like to jump over fences, jump up on anything they can and peck at anything new. Ask Nicole about this.
• Turkeys aren't dumb. I want to preface this by saying that I don't really think any animal is dumb. Animals are all smart in their own ways. After watching a completely domesticated hen hatch a chick and raise it without ever seeing it or being taught how to do it, I realize that animal have much better instincts than we do in some ways. Back to the turkey. The typical Thanksgiving turkey might be dumb because humans have bred any intelligence out of them. But heritage breeds and wild turkeys are intelligent. 

Stay tuned for how we turned these beautiful birds into a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

The things we do for our chickens

Last night we had quite an interesting experience with one of our chickens.

Sam went out to tuck everyone in for the night and only counted 22 birds (we have 23 birds total). After looking around for a minute he found this:

One of our chickens had nuzzled its way into the middle of some welded wire we had laying around (which was on the side of the barn they supposedly do not have access to, by the way) and was stuck. Her tail was sticking out but we couldn't pull her out and were afraid we would cut her up if we tried. Sam tried to push her through to the other side but, as you can see in the picture, this side was pinched and the hole was smaller, too small for her to fit through - I had run over the welded wire a little when it was in the driveway a while ago - oops :). 

Our only solution was to unroll the ENTIRE thing in the dark... in the FREEZING COLD.

This whole scene was sort of hilarious to me so I took a couple pictures because it just HAD to be documented. Just picture a chicken's little head poking out going around and around while we unrolled and unrolled and unrolled... seriously funny! I mean, it was a little sad, but mostly hilarious since we were 98% sure she wasn't hurt at all, just stuck.

Towards the end we had to be careful unrolling the welded wire so we would not to bend her feet and break something since her feet were all tangled in the wire.

Once she was free she seemed a little in shock. We held her and pet her to let her know we were just trying to help and then we let her walk around for a minute to make sure nothing was broken or hurt before sending her off to bed with the rest of the flock. She was totally okay by the way, just a little confused.

Sometimes chickens are quite smart and sometimes they are really dumb (in this instance, for example). Nonetheless, it is ridiculous and quite funny the lengths we go to keep these chickens safe and happy. They are crazy but we love them!