Spring is for Turkens
As I sit to type this my house is surrounded with the sounds of turkeys chortling and cackling to and at each other. Spring is indeed headed toward Western Pennsylvania although the high today will be around 40. We have been watching the wild turkey population grow in my neighborhood each year and this year we are blessed to be able to have two flocks come to visit us daily. Some mornings I have counted up to 31 turkeys and as it stands right now there are at least 4 very nice long beards. Wild turkeys are smart and they are fun to watch, and then there are tame turkeys......
We have raised tame turkeys a few springs. They start out so cute when tiny- good thing they taste good later because those white turkeys get to be real ugly real fast! One year we had two hens who we even took out to stud- do you call it that with turkeys??? Anyway, they both made nests later and one had fertile eggs that hatched and her sister just sat and sat and sat and she was determined that if her sis could have babies she could too. Her clutch was long overdue but she would not leave the nest.
We had chicken eggs in the incubator during this time and I decided that the only way to get her off that nest was to have something hatch. I could hear my chicken eggs starting to peep and so I donned a leather coat and leather gloves and rounded up all the eggs that were ready to break open and took off down into the pines to do battle with my turkey. Hen turkeys are not nice when they are on a nest- take my word for that- the leather was important that day. Anyway, I somehow managed to get the eggs underneath her and then we waited and watched.
Soon I had one turkey waddling around with her little turkeys scurrying around her legs and another hen strutting around with five little chickens playing tag with the bugs and running to her for protection. We decided that it was a good thing that I chose only chicken eggs to plant underneath the hen as the baby ducks who were also hatching in the incubator would have caused some real confusion when they headed for the water as all baby ducks eventually do. I could have had the first tur-duck-en family but that was before John Madden made that delicacy popular.
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