Farewell our Feathered Friends

We have raised turkeys before but this time was so much fun and much easier.
We understood better what it takes to raise them and found it much simpler than the first time.
The girls were also older and had way more fun with them and helped out quite a bit.

We got them as chicks only 2 days old and since the mortality is quite high initially we lost 3 in the first 2 days.
After that one white one sadly one died from over handling ( I can only assume) from a group of 15 kids we had over one day.
Lesson learned there.
Apart from the regular white turkeys that you usually see we got a few bronze breasted birds because we were told that they taste way better and have a darker meat.
But since they grow at a slower rate they were a smaller bird and were sold for their desirable size, so we never even got to try one.
Maybe next year.

Here they are a week old and under the heat lamp in their shed.

Already we could see personalities shining through.

This bronze one was Tasha and she proved to be the funniest and most mischievous of the bunch.

Their feet were so neat and the male birds (Toms) had huge feet by the end.

At about 2 months old they were gangely and awkward.

E right till the end, man handled and picked them all up.

This is the first we saw of a male strutting his stuff.

His first calls were like a prepubescent teen, garbbled and crackly, absolutely hilarious to hear.

The red comb in youth.

The bubbling mass changes colour and size as they grew older, and as they get hot, or cold or angry it changed as well.

SO ugly they are cute.

The girls would always chase and catch them.

It was a fun game and as the turkeys do not peck, the girls were pretty safe, unless they accidentally got clawed by a toe nail.

At this point we figured out we had 3 males and they would compete and strut their stuff all around the yard.

If any noise was heard they would gobble away and protect their ladies.

Yes turkeys, even with their wings clipped, can fly.

Here they are roosting on top of their pen.

We would find Tasha out of the pen daily, and how a dog never got her is beyond me.

Always watching.

Saying a goodbye the night before slaughter as we gathered them into a enclosure for easier catching in the morning.

Their last night.

It was a bit of a challenge to get the turkeys to the slaughter house without a cage or trailer this time, so J jimmy rigged this netting over the box of his truck.

Off they go.

Let me tell you for 12 bucks each bird it is well worth it to get someone else to do it all. They have all the equiptment and know how, so why would I bother.

I could never do anything like that, ever,

Notice the size of this one. It had trouble walking around. He was actually getting to big for his legs.

Can you believe he weighed in at over 50 lbs...... processed!!!

Here he is bagged and in our freezer.

Now we need an army to feed when we cook that bird up.

Another farming adventure all said and done, and I already miss them and their squawking around the yard.

Good bye turkeys. Thank you for the good times and good food.