Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Zzzzzz…. Ah, corn, cookies, mashed potatoes…
Harumph…. Huh? Who’s there? Wait, where am I?
Wha? I was just dreaming…creamed corn…
Oh my, what a big eye you have…
Are you my mom???
Postscript: Six poults hatch from among the couple of dozen eggs the mama turkey lays on. Turkeys are big and clumsy, and the mama squashes her babies by accident, killing four.
Jim and the girls snap into action. There are only two poults left, one injured, the other tangled in the octagon of a chickenwire fence. Jim cuts out the trapped baby.
Both are just a few days old but already they eat and drink. Like most babies they sleep a lot. An old photography light/heat lamp simulates (as much as possible) the warmth of Mama’s downy feathers.
Jim says we’re nurturing the next generation of turkeys. Every day until all the eggs hatch he’ll be out there watching for the next set of poults.
Turkeys on red Ravine
- Word Of The Day: Turklet
- Good Mother, Bad Mother
- Wild Turkeys Of Rioteague Island
- The Great Wild Turkey Experiment Is Failing
- Introducing (Drumroll) The Amazing Turkeys Wallenda
- Just Like A Warm, Fuzzy Lick (Almost)
- Happy Turkeys Day
- Turkeys Are Exhibitionists (And Other Things I’ve Learned From My Feathered Friends)
- Reflections On The Other National Bird
- Giving Thanks
This is a true sign of spring! Congratulations to all and best wishes on rescuing and raising those poults.
I’m so glad that I didn’t have to hatch my babies, because I just know that someone would have said, “The mama is big and clumsy and squashes her babies by accident.”
People may have said things about the kind of mama I was, but at least they didn’t say that. Phew!
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These are just the cutest photos – so adorable and such funny expressions…….I never heard of “poults” – I know young chickens are “pullets” — Have fun with your new fuzzy family. The next generation has arrived.
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Very cute. I don’t think I could raise them, though, so I’m glad you’re rescuing them and not me.
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LOL, breathepeace. You should read the post (linked above) called Good Mother, Bad Mother. It’s my guilt complex speaking for calling out that one of the turkeys was big and clumsy and killing its babies on accident.
BTW, the “good mother” from that post is still alive but wasn’t the one who hatched these latest babies. The mama was another new mother.
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‘lil, I’d never heard of the word either until we got baby turkeys. And a brood of them is called a “rafter.” Cool, eh?
It’s so hard to believe that these adorable fuzzy things turn into those, em, well, ugly adults. (OK, I admit it, I think the male turkeys are freaks of nature. What’s with all that stuff around their faces!?)
Corina, believe me, I’m really bad when it comes to rescuing turkeys, because the little peeps are running all over and the adults are in distress. Last year Jim rescued a bunch off the roof of the pen. I couldn’t watch.
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I’m glad Jim saved these two fuzzies – yet another generation of turkeys to linger on your patio. But instead of calling a bunch of these little guys a ‘rafter’, why not call them a ‘patio of poults’? After all, do turkey babies hang around rafters? G
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LOL. Yes, patiola. That’s what I’ll call them. Oh, Jim, look at the patiola leaving their scat on the bricks!
BTW, G., we now keep the turkeys in their pen; thus, the patio is back to the nice state it was pre-patiola.
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I don’t call a bunch of turkeys a rafter, I call them dinner! But they do need to grow first. 🙂 There are wild turkeys around here in my busy suburb, and usually when you see them, you only see the hens. A couple of weeks ago, driving to pick up my daughter at school, I saw the flock (rafter), including the tom. I kinda thought he was handsome!
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Ha! Good one.
Thanksgiving before last, we got revved up by the idea of having a couple of heritage turkeys (two, since they’re smaller than the butterballs) for Thanksgiving. We’d seen a show about how incredibly moist and delicious heritage turkeys were, how they were the original Thanksgiving turkey, and how all the additives and other gunk that has been modified over the years of turkey-growing had changed the flavor of turkey.
So, we decided to go for it. We did a trade with a friend—two turkeys for her and her partner in exchange for her teaching us to slaughter ours. Well, my friend clipped the wings of her young (but already big) turkeys because she didn’t want them flying away, and wa-la, they were eaten by coyotes. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, even though she offered to help us with the slaughter, we changed our minds. Just couldn’t bring ourselves to eat the pet turkeys.
I think from afar a tom is most handsome, but when you see its warbler/wobbler (whatever that part is called) up close, well, it looks like something that belongs inside the body, not outside. 8)
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ybonesy, we read the comments on this post from Kansas City but I wanted to come back and comment. The patiola are so cute! I’m glad you saved a few of them. Actually, since the Wild Turkey was almost our National bird, I’ve gained a lot of respect for them through the eyes of Ben Franklin. And Turkeys are the give-a-way totems — gratitude and giving back.
Turkey feathers are pretty cool, too. I guess they are in the wild in Minnesota, but I don’t think I’ve seen them here that way. Keep the heat lamp a glowin’. 8)
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I respect them more, too, as a result of reading more of Ben Franklin’s words about them.
Last night Dee noticed that a third baby, younger than these other two, was caught in the chickenwire, so they rescued that one. It is really dark, will probably be black.
They’re outside in the garden right now, but in a cage. We don’t want them to be snacks for a hawk or one of our bird-eating dogs.
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[…] That Time Of Year Again — Turklets […]
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