Stealth Raccoon.

As you may know, your standard Thanksgiving turkey is a genetic mutation, developed to produce the most food for the least money and effort.  The resulting creature cannot carry its own weight after a year and is unable to reproduce naturally, in addition to being flavorless and shot full of hormones and antibiotics. Heritage breed turkeys are making a little bit of a comeback, and we have jumped on that bandwagon for the past few years. 

Each year, we order turkey chicks from several states away, and they are shipped to us in a box through the U.S. postal system (which seems none too happy with the arrangement.)  There are always a couple of dead or dying chicks in the box, and we usually lose a few more before they stabilize in a warm spot in our bathroom.

My goal has been to get them to breed, and eventually eliminate the need to order and ship live baby animals, because it just seems so ridiculous.  They are expensive, too, at about $15 per chick.  However, they no longer possess their natural instincts.  Males often can't figure out what to do with their hormones, females think I am their mate, and eggs get dropped randomly in the yard, left to quickly grow cold.

This year, I managed to get one still-warm egg under a broody hen, who successfully hatched and raised it.  It was a female, and I had high hopes that she might have some inherent maternal instincts, and my plan would finally begin to work.  But, just now, when I opened the coop to let the flock out for the day, I found a bloody, headless body on the floor.  At first, there was no sign of a break-in, but I finally found a spot near the roof where the chicken-wire had been pried apart.  I am grateful that only one of our 6 turkeys was killed, but it appears to be my baby.  My one hope.

Butchering will take place sometime this week, by my good, efficient friends at Barnyard Gardens.  I'm taking the whole bunch in, and will start again in the spring.  I can't imagine the amount of work and investment involved in a real business raising and selling free-range, organic, heritage turkeys, but I am certain that those doing it deserve every penny of the steep price.

Turkey News - babies!

Well, my female turkey has been laying, and she sometimes sits on an egg for short periods, but I always find them cold by the end of the day.  It turns out, turkey eggs are fine for eating, so I've used them for baking.  In the meantime, I've had one broody hen laying on a chicken egg for many weeks.  A couple of days ago, I found that egg left untended and stone cold.  The hen had moved to a different spot, so I slipped a warm turkey egg under her.  She has been tending it for a few days.  I opened the egg she had been sitting on to find a dead chicken fetus inside, nearly full term.  Who knows why she suddenly abandoned it? 

Last Thursday, our order of turkey chicks arrived.  There were 15, to be shared among 3 families.  They are hatched and shipped the same day, and I'm finally getting used to picking up a box of live creatures from my local post office.  However, it seems so strange, and I really hope that we will begin to raise our own turkeys so they don't start their lives bumping around in a box.  In previous years, I've opened the box to find at least one dead, and it seems brutal.  This year, all were alive and well, except that one had a malformed foot.  It seemed otherwise healthy, so I kept an eye on it.  Over the weekend, its legs became weaker, and on Sunday, it slowly died.  It was painful to watch and Anouk sobbed, wailing, "It's only a baby!  It's not fair!"  I have no idea what was wrong with it.  Possibly a nerve disorder?  Or maybe its gimpy foot made it too difficult to get sufficient food and water.  Whatever the reason, Anouk and I held a modest funeral, burying it in the kitchen garden and planting the grave with a columbine.

We bury a lot of animals.

Anouk's class incubated chicken eggs this spring, tracking fetal development with charts and photos.  They hatched last week, and she won a lottery allowing her to bring two home (with permission, of course.)  So on Friday, I put them in with the turkeys under a heat lamp in our bathroom.  As a rule, chickens and turkeys are not supposed to be kept together, but I can't figure out another arrangement with our limited space.  There is one disease that chickens can carry that is fatal to turkeys.  However, we've been taking that chance for years with no problems.

So, it seems that our attempts to breed our adult turkeys hasn't worked this year.  We will cull the adult male turkey and try again in a year.  It is my theory that they need to relearn long lost instincts, so I feel we need to give our female more time.  In the meantime, I'll start trying to steal her eggs before they get cold and either incubate them or get a chicken to do it for me.

Romancing the Turkey

In case you haven't been following my story, we began raising turkeys 3 years ago.  The first year, we raised 3 domestic breed turkeys, which are bred to grow so large that they cannot procreate, fly, or even carry their own weight after reaching full size.  Our expert farmer friends, Paul & Kirsten, came over and butchered them in our driveway in exchange for the largest.  That turkey was so huge, they had to saw it in half to fit it in their oven.

Last year, we ordered heritage turkeys, which can fly, live full lives without their legs breaking under their own weight, and are capable of procreation.  However, heritage birds are so rare now that the mating instinct is a bit fuzzy, from what I understand.  Since almost all turkeys are bred through artificial insemination, there is little information about turkey mating, and even the turkeys could use some sex ed courses.

We butchered (that is, Paul and Kirsten did) five turkeys in November, leaving a tom and two hens in hopes of seeing them hatch a slough of babies this spring.  Having read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (highly recommended!) I have been watching for any signs of sexual maturity similar to those she describes in her book.  (We lost one hen to a raccoon attack.)

I've mentioned recently that Tom is acting like a Vegas showgirl, strutting around with his feathers all fluffy, rattling his wings to make a noise like a gentle motor.  He chases me whenever I turn away from him, then shies away when I turn back toward him.  I felt terrible when I learned that he scared the bejeesus out of our young housesitter last weekend.  But, despite months of turkey machismo, I have not seen an egg or any attempts by Tom to get jiggy with his woman.

Until this morning!  She has been approaching me for a couple of days as if she believes I am a potential suitor, sitting down next to me and bowing her head.  I used to sit and pet my turkeys when they did this, but I have since learned that it is mating behavior.  Still, today, I couldn't resist giving her a little pet on the back, which triggered an immediate reaction from Tom.  I thought he was going to attack me!  He ran over, making all kinds of noise, and proved that he could do for her what I never can.  Afterward, he looked like he wasn't sure what had just happened, but she appeared refreshed and satisfied.

From what I have read, even if the turkeys are mating, egg fertilization is tricky.  So, I'm not expecting this to result in hatching chickens right off the bat, but it is a very promising step in the right direction.  We are about to order a shipment of turkeys again, but I hope that, in future years, we will feel confident in our turkeys' ability to hatch and raise their own young.

Day of the Dead...Turkeys.

Yesterday was the day of reckoning for all but three of our turkeys. The previous day, I had to keep them cooped without access to food to prepare. This was the hardest part for me. It felt cruel, and I cringed whenever I walked outside to hear them gobbling for me to let them out. I woke up on Sunday morning with a queasiness in my gut, and hoped our friends would come over early to get it over with.

Our friends, Paul and Kirsten, own Barnyard Gardens in Shelton, a CSA farm and edible landscaping business. Paul grew up farming, and he was the horticulture teacher at Mike's school until he began his business. Kirsten is a farm extension agent, and she works with small farms and agricultural outreach programs through UW, in addition to working the farm and selling produce at their local farmer's market.

They brought over their truckload of equipment and set everything up in our driveway, adjacent to the coops. Mike filled huge buckets of hot water to pour into a large metal container with a propane heater to keep the water at 145 degrees. There was a problem with the heater, so Paul had to do some rewiring, creating a delay. I was worried that they wouldn't be able to carry out the process. I had an old friend driving from Portland (2 hour drive) for a turkey, and I really wanted to be able to send him home with one. Besides, I didn't want to drag it out another day.

Paul and Kirsten have a 1-year-old boy, so I gladly took on kid-duty. While I feel that we all need to be able to face the reality of our meat production, I am still not comfortable with it. But I have decided that, since I raise the turkeys with a lot of care, I should be allowed to duck inside when they are killed. Thankfully, my friends arrived right at the beginning, offering me a welcome distraction. During the time it took to show them around the property and introduce them to the goats, the turkeys were all beheaded, dunked in the hot water, de-feathered, and "dressed".

Paul and Kirsten have a contraption that looks like a big plastic barrel on legs, with rubber nubs all over the interior. They put the turkeys in this thing and it quickly pulls out the feathers as it spins. The whole operation is quick, clean and efficient.

We are left with one tom and two hens, and we will attempt to breed them this spring - something that is rarely done anymore. (Domestic turkeys are unable to breed on their own and can't live past a year anyway, and heirloom breeds like ours are rare.) I look forward to seeing them raise their own chicks. We will have to make some changes to protect our birds from predators, possibly installing electrical fencing. We lost half of our turkeys, which is a huge loss. In fact, we just lost two more chickens on Halloween because I was out late with Anouk, and Mike forgot to close the coop. But, if we can manage our flock well from now on, we might be able to sell great, free-range turkeys for a profit every year. While figuring our price per pound, I did online research and was shocked to learn that people pay $100-$200 for a free-range heritage turkey. This year, we are losing money for sure, but I think we can do better.

It is a relief to have only the 3 beautiful white turkeys to manage for the rest of winter. The coop was getting crowded and I was getting very tired of chasing them all around every night to collect them. They were ranging farther and farther, and I had to get them out of the neighbor's yard twice (and they are NOT friendly neighbors.) Clipping their right wings had little effect, except that they didn't roost on our rooftops anymore.

So, on this Day of the Dead, my thoughts are going most immediately to those silly turkeys that lost their lives yesterday to become nourishment for a few humans. It sure brings a new level of appreciation for our Thanksgiving dinner.