Oh, look, it’s the humans. They’re watching us.
Let’s give ’em a show, BOYZ!
Strut, aha, strut, aha…
Funky turkey, yeah, funk it up, yeah…
Ready, set…
MOUNT!
Oh, look, they’re running away screaming…
Mission accomplished. Good job, BOYZ.
Duck, get lost. You’re such a peeping tom.
Ready, Set, Mount…, Eagle Eye and her toms mating on the patio,
June 2008, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Other Things I’ve Learned:
- Turkeys are not monogamous
- Turkeys are, however, family oriented (my family, that is)
- Domestic turkeys can’t be made wild (unless we’re talking amor, in which case they’re a lot more wild than ducks)
- Domestic turkeys can, however, be taught amazing tricks
- Turkeys can be used to teach children about the Birds & Bees, and…
- If you want trained, educational, passionate turkeys, I know where you can get some at a great price!
-Related to post WRITING TOPIC – LIGHT AS A FEATHER.
ha ha ha ha ha ha!
thanks.
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ybonesy, great shots of wings, feathers, and tails! Do you really use these gobblers to talk to your kids about the Birds & the Bees? Also the difference in size between the toms and the female is striking. Do the toms have names? BTW, did you notice it’s the first time in about a year we’ve used our Sex Category. 8)
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Ha, no I hadn’t noticed. My, we’re kind of prudish, eh QM? 😉
Well, no, I don’t actually talk about *the* Birds & Bees using the turkey as an example, but we do observe and comment on their particular rituals of mating. For example,
Me: My God, he’s going to break her back…
Em: Poor thing, I would hate to be a female turkey!
That kind of thing.
No, QM, we haven’t named the toms. I’m told that one of them not pictured is named Henry. So maybe we’ll adopt your method of naming all rabbits “Tawny” and call all our toms “Henry.” Oh, I also want to say that of the turkeys we ended up keeping from last year’s rafter, we ended up with a bunch of toms. And, in terms of size, the toms aren’t *that* much larger than the hens, but when mating the boys puff up A LOT.
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Prudish, well, at least on paper. 8) Ah, I see, the abridged version of Birds & Bees. Puffy — maybe you should call all the toms, Puffy or Puffs-A-Lot. 8) Nah, I like Henry better. Will all the Henrys and Tawnys of the world please stand out.
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Oh, i don’t know – why just not all Call them Tom, Dick and Harry, then Tom ll, Dick ll and Harry ll and so forth.
he: Ahh, eagle eye!!!
she: Tom? Dick? Harry? (since turkeys are not monogamous, you say, you could have fun doing voice-overs to any video clips of them mating!)
They are rather beautiful to look at, though, and so handy to have tor the sex talk with the kids. Might confuse them though? Just a bit…. B-) G
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we used to have a flock of these–my wife and the girls hated them–
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Well, that’s a first, mating turkeys, he’s so huge how does she cope, okay that doesn’t sound good, but anyways I see submission is alive and well in turkey world *grin*. Cool post.
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OMG! Is this the red Ravine version of pr0n? 😮
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QM, I like Puff-a-lot. Kind of like Pants-a-lot. 8)
G, between you and Jo, I can be inspired to do a whole Story of O type dialog between Eagle Eye and the Puff-a-lot/Henry/Tom/Dicks. 8)
Scot, my daughters love them, but I go between thinking they’re pretty cool to running after them with a broom.
sam, yeah, I guess you could say that. Although, I didn’t use the tag being as how we already have people coming to red Ravine based on some pretty out-there search terms (LINK). BTW, thanks for the misspell. That was intentional, I take it, so that you wouldn’t contribute to the search debaucery, yes?
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These photos look like you interrupted their Variety Show! A great, fun look at their world.
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Yeah, I kind of looked at it as though their Variety Show interrupted my breakfast — really, I was sitting at the kitchen table minding my own business, and they really did seem to put on the show just for me and the girls. But I suppose I interrupted something of theirs, too, when I commenced to chase them off with the broom. 8) (Just kidding. Their antics fascinate all of us here. It’s when we’ve just swept the patio, and then the turkeys come with their scat, that the broom comes out.)
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Poor Henry(s). They are getting a bad rep. 8) ybonesy, what color is your broom? Is it a straw one like the days of yore? Just curious.
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yb, so funny! This post reminds me of 2 different mating experiences I have had to deal with over the years (of course there were many more! 🙂 The one was with Brant when I purchased the movie about the dog and cat. It was Otis & Milo or Milo & Otis (I can’t remember the name for sure right now), but they are best friends living on a farm & end up accidentally running off from their home on a farm. I remembered how much our boys loved that movie when they were younger, so I purchased it for Brant when he was only four. I forgot about the live births when they each found mates & were stranded in a snow storm & got seperated. I had some explaining to do!
The 2nd memory happened many years ago when I had a driver take photos of a very dangerous place that we delived loads of freight to in Philadelphia, PA. The last photo he took was of 2 dogs doing it on the sidewalk. I am ashamed to say that I made a cartoon caption & taped it to the female dog in the photo that read “Bury that bone you bad dog you”. I guess not too ashamed or I wouldn’t have shared it here.
I have never seen turkeys mate & this post made my evening! D
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diddy, you crack me up. We should hire you to do a few posts to fill out our Sex Category. We’ve discovered we may be leaning on the prudish side (see Comments 2 & 3). Or maybe it goes back to that old question about why writers don’t write about sex! So happy to have you back in town! 8)
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QM, I am afraid I have too many stories for prudes like you you & yb! 🙂 D
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QM, such a curious soul…well, our outdoor broom is wooden (tan) with yellow straw sweeper part, and our indoor broom is red and black, synthetic. Do you have outdoor and indoor brooms? (I’m a curious soul, too.) 🙂
diddy, you should become a caption writer for photos of animals mating. I actually even thought of opening it up to a blog context to let our readers come up with captions (which, I know, mine go above the photos, not below them) for the three turkey mating photos above. Or, even just the last one.
So, if you want to have at it, feel free. I won’t be scandalized, I promise. 8)
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yb, I would love to do something like that!
Another of my favorite captioning over the years has been to cut out cartoons from the Sunday or daily newspaper, gently wite-out certain names or words & hand print my own to fit certain friends(or family members). One of my friends who was also a co-worker lived with her boyfriend Bodie. Bodie was quite a character. I did several a week about Bodie. My friend loved this & we all got a few good laughs at Bodies expense! He loved them, so we started a photo album filled with these cartoons! It was all in fun & I never did any that would hurt his feelings or that were vulgar.
Have you ever seen turtles mate? That is one slow process! D
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diddy, that’s wild. We have a contest at work where someone puts up the New Yorker cartoon and people create new captions for it. They even give prizes to the winner. I had no idea you liked to do that! Have you ever seen those photo programs that let you add bubbles above people’s heads?
The name Bodie — it reminds me of that movie Point Break. Patrick Swayze goes by the name Bodhi for bodhisattva. Keanu Reeves is in it, too. It’s pretty good.
BTW, I saw a turtle lay her eggs once by a huge lake in North Dakota (on a trip with Liz to see her homeland). It was amazing watching that turtle. There were so many eggs and they were so large. It made me wonder what’s really going on under that shell. 8)
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We witnessed the turtle mating when J & I were living at the farm. We had huge snapping turtles in the pond that looked prehistoric & it was actually one of the boys that first noticed them in the act. We watched with binoculars from our wall of windows in the dining room! This was a long drawn out event & we only tuned in on them every now & then. And yes, they would come into our yard & lay their eggs. When they hatched it was quite a sight. By the hundreds these tiny turtles made their journey to the pond. D
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ybonesy, I AM a curious soul. I think even as a kid, so curious. What’s that old saying — curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back? Brooms and women have a long history together. I like to see what kinds women like to use around the house. I like the old fashioned straw brooms. People used to make those by hand in the days of yore. But can you even get those straw brooms anymore?
diddy, that sounds like a mini-eco version of the baby sea turtles that make their way back to the sea. I was amazed at how the mother turtles used the claws on their hind legs to dig a hole into the dirt for the eggs. Amazing!
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QM, you know the New Yorker cartoon caption contest you do at work? Well, it comes from the back page of each New Yorker weekly magazine. I might have told you this before, but when that first started coming out, I really got into it. I’d spend an hour each week trying to come up with captions, and then I’d read them to Jim.
Me: Jim, Jim, listen to these ones… (I read my five or six captions while showing him the blank cartoon)
Jim: (blank face) I don’t really get them.
Me: (on the floor laughing until I’m crying) No??? They’re hilarious! Really, you don’t get them. (I try the best ones again.) Believe me, these ones are going to win…
I must have sent in my captions for months, eight or nine, and never did one win. Mind you, they get thousands of entries, many along the same themes.
I’ve stopped sending in my captions, but for a while there, I was sure I was going to win the lottery. And, I still write them in my head, and it’s still great fun. 8)
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diddy, yes, the flight of the hundreds of babies…what a natural wonder. Pictures, please!! I think I’d fall in love with the baby turtles, just like I do baby frogs.
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ybonesy, I can totally see you doing the New Yorker caption thing! And I’m pretty sure I’d be more like Jim — “What? I don’t get it?” 8)
I’ve never been a joke teller, never gotten the punchlines of jokes. I just never thought they were funny. I wonder if I’d be the same way with the captions (?). Once again, a curious, odd soul!
I saw the contest on the wall back in shipping, pinned up there by one of the Supervisors. I wonder why you never won? It seems like you should have! I bet you would have been great at those captions.
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yb, sorry but no photos. J & I just enjoyed witnessing the experience & never took any. As we no longer live on the farm, I am afraid it is too late. But, it is a miracle to witness that that side of nature! I will always have the memories! D
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