TURKEY LURKEY

Since moving to the country, we have encountered many things we would not encounter in the city.  Chalk up another encounter for the city slickers turn farmers. We were visited by turkeys! Yes indeedy chilly beanie. Your eyes are not lying.  Turkeys.  Not 2 or 4 or even 6, but a flock of nearly 30 turkeys descended on our quiet little farm.  Did I say quiet? 

A week before planting our crop, I was outside watering. I was looking at the fields thinking about planting and if I should run the disc over the fields one more time.  I noticed some birds...BIG birds.  Well I'll be, it is turkeys?  Looking a bit more intently, yes it is turkeys!  They were at the east end of our field and working the soil looking for bugs!  They worked as a group from south to north, then left as quickly as they showed up.  This flock of turkeys belong to a neighbor, who lives about an 1/8th of a mile from us.

What a treat!  Turkeys on our farm.  How cool is that? The following day no turkeys.  I was back to planning my crop planting.  Which you all know is done and growing, (still in desperate need of rain). 

A week after the crop is planted I leaving on a cat food run for Vinny.  I pull out of the carport and glance over at the the dried up pond......WHAT?! I stop the SUV suddenly. There are turkeys working the dry pond floor for bugs. Again, how cool!  I grab my phone and take a couple of pictures.  See below

How cool!  I continue down the driveway on my cat food run, then it hits me. What am I doing?  It is not every day that a flock of turkeys visit the farm!  I turn around head into the house and grab my camera.  I head out on foot and snap a few pictures.  Here they are.

The bird on the far right is not a turkey.  It is a Guinea hen.  They are ugly but cool.  There is a pair of them with the turkeys.  They keep the turkeys in line. Seriously.

The Guinea hens hang out with the lead turkey.  The other turkeys, for their own good, obey the Guinea hens.

They kind of blend in don't they..

A Guinea and three turkeys.  they are not pretty birds, but I must admit they do have their own kind of beauty. Their coloring is pretty.

After working the pond and lawn, they head over to the two tubs of water we keep full for the geese. The turkeys find the mix of scratch, wild bird seed and cracked corn we put out for the Canadian Geese that come by each day.  They eat, they drink and they rest.

This turkey found this stock of sorghum I let grow in the yard.  The turkey picked that stock clean.

They are enjoying the mix of seeds we leave for the geese.

They took their break and I needed to leave them alone.  I took off on my cat food run.  The turkeys were gone by the time I returned home.  What a fun experience!

Next day, surprise!  Turkeys.  They came back.  This time they hung around until about 3:00PM.  It was quite a trip to have them roaming around you.

My husband and I were out cleaning the coop, changing out the old straw and putting in new straw. The turkeys hung around, not too close but close enough to watch us.  All was fine until they saw the ducks. The ducks attracted the turkeys interest.

Our two Appleyard boys talk incessantly. The only time they are not talking is when a snake is in their enclosure, then they do not make a sound, until the snake is gone.  The chattering of the boys got the turkeys going. It was funny and I was not able to catch all of the interaction on camera, but I did manage to snap a couple of pictures.  Whatever the boys were saying, the turkeys were listening, then chasing or following the boys. The boys ran as fast as their little webbed feet would carry them.  The turkeys were in hot pursuit. The boys jumped up on the building we have stacked up and ran across it. This picture below shows the boys coming off the other end of the building fleeing from the turkeys. 

  

The Turkeys are following our boy ducks, Mac and Jonathan's path. 

They went this way!

Now all the ducks are fleeing from the turkeys!  This is the only time you will see the ducks work together. 

The ducks sought the shelter of their human care takers. The turkeys did not pursue them any further.  They decided to graze the grass looking for bugs. 

 We had a short rain shower, just enough to get you damp, then it stopped. They are preening, drying off and taking a break.  I managed to video them with my phone camera. I could not get very close to them. 

FYI: To view the video in full screen, click on the box (kind of an open box) in the right lower corner. 
 
The turkeys came back every day.  It seems once they were released they made a bee line for our place.  The Canadian geese did not know what to make of these birds.  The turkeys would run the geese off and eat their food. 

The turkeys chasing the geese. Normally we have roughly 50 geese feasting, but these were the only five willing to remain.  They would run the geese not only away from the food, but as far out into the fields as possible. Eventually, the geese would see them coming and fly off. 


A crow one day stopped by for a drink of water from the tubs. The turkeys chased it away too.  They were very territorial about the food source on our farm. The turkey's claimed this farm theirs!


Each day they ran across the street, not sure how they managed to keep from getting run over, to our place. They made a bee line for food left for the geese, then wandered down to the pond to forage, then wandered all over our farm foraging and resting. 

They usually ended up resting in the back yard just outside of the dog enclosed area. Some of the turkeys even ventured into the dog area. The dogs were in the house, thankfully.  I did not realize they were doing this until I let the dogs out!!!!  Turkeys flew back over the fence before the dogs could get them, whew!  Each day I had to check the dog area for turkeys, before letting the dogs outside. 

 Here is a picture of one turkey on the dog side of the fence. Usually 5 or so would be on the dog side of the fence.

The turkeys were taking over.  They were perched on the roof of the garage, carport and house.  They also discovered the bird feeders and bird baths! 

This post is 8 feet high. A good view I am sure. 

 Yep, a good view!

Feeding frenzy...

Aren't they pretty? 

You can kind of see the turkeys behind the satellite feeder drinking from the bird bath.
 

The little bird in front is one of the two Guinea hens.  Don't feel bad for the Guinea. They will chase a turkey away from their food.  I saw them do it more than once.


Here is a picture of a Guinea hen's feather. I had it on one of my hats.

Cool feather of a Guinea hen.

 Another Guinea feather.

This is one of the Guinea hens.

These birds picked the feeders and the food on the ground clean! I was refilling the bird feeders three times a day.  I use a bird seed mix brand called the National Audubon Society mix from Costco and Purina Chickadee delight mix. The song birds stayed far away while the turkeys were eating their seeds.

After their feast, they would drink out of the bird baths, which I clean and refill each day.

They even found the cat food dish with cat chow and Costco Kirkland brand cat food. They pecked out all the Costco food and left the cat chow.

What a mess they left.

This bird was curious.

As I said, each day the turkeys spent their day on our farm.  They arrived between 7:45 and 8:30AM. They walked through the woods and every inch of our farm looking for food. They would rest in the back yard or rest next to the coop.  They hung around until 3:00PM, then work their way back home.

I mentioned earlier that these turkeys made this farm theirs.  One day I let the dogs out back. The turkeys were sitting on the other side of the fence.  The dogs did not run out barking, but ran out in hopes of catching a bird. The birds had other ideas.  The dogs were lined up at the fence watching the turkeys, not barking.  The turkeys got up and proceeded to charge the fence and the dogs!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was running around the yard chasing the dogs back to and into the house!  I did not want the death of turkeys and pecked dogs, on my hands. 

A video of me chasing the dogs while the turkeys were chasing the dogs, with some of the turkeys flying up onto the fence, would have been a hoot for you to see. It was stressful for me at the time, but now I find it funny.

The turkeys were not afraid to chase off anything they felt was a threat to their new digs.  They never chased me.  I brought food. They must have understood the saying, "don't bite the hand that feeds you."  The ducks, as you saw earlier fell victim to being chased.  The turkeys liked to rest for the afternoon on the north side of the coop.  They had trees, sun, shade and a foraging area.

 Here is a Guinea Hen with a turkey hanging out in their rest area.

 We have a stack of logs along the north side of the coop. The turkeys worked the logs for bugs.

 They did not seem to mind me snapping pictures of them.

 See the two turkeys in the tree?

See the three turkeys in the tree??

I let Oma and Little Dude, then Buffy and Phoebe.  Blinkin was gone.  The turkeys did not care about them. They stayed where they were and enjoyed sun, shade and rest.  I took my time letting the boys, Mac and Jonathan, out because they chase the girls. I liked to give the girls a head start.  I moseyed over to the boys and let them out.  They fly, run out of their enclosure. They talk the entire time.  Something about the boys, triggered the turkeys. They were up and chasing the boys!  The boys manage to get all the ducks running away with them.

The turkeys chased the ducks all over.  Mac, Jonathan and Little Dude are on the edge of the woods. Buffy and I think it was Oma are on the left side behind the broken tree.

This is Phoebe trying to get away from the turkeys.

The ducks are trapped.  It is Mac, Jonathan, Oma and I think Little Dude is behind Oma.

Here are the ducks doing their best to get away from these turkeys! Little Dude is trying to run as fast as his short little legs will carry him. He uses his wings to keep his balance and tries to fly run.


No one was hurt. I stepped in and the turkeys went off foraging.

The ducks are gone, lets go hunt for bugs!

This was their last visit to our farm.  Sadly they were sold off for you know, thanksgiving meals. This flock was a cash flock. The cattle here are cash cows, just as goats, sheep, chickens and ducks are raised for cash.  I was sad for them. They were young birds.  They got to spend their youth hanging out on our farm eating bugs and seeds.  They got to be rulers of their territory, if only for a fleeting moment.

I enjoyed the experience.  I would never see this in the city.  They were our daily visitors for nearly a month. They left behind fertilizer, which if it every rains again will do wonders for the farm.  I have some feathers they left behind too. I was hopeful the neighbor would have kept them, but I knew they were only another source of income to him.

Here are some remaining photos of my guests.  I hope you enjoyed our visitors!

I held this feather so the iridescent would shine a bit on the top of the feather.