First of all, everyone needs a turkey. They add spice to life. Zest to your farm. Pizzazz to your menagerie. And strike terror in the hearts of grasshoppers everywhere, which is useful.
That said, what does the life of a free range turkey on a little farm in Oklahoma look like?
Well, whether they come from an online order and arrive in a box via the mail or whether they pop out of your own home-incubated eggs, they start out pretty adorable. Think slightly more gawky, gangly chicks. They will melt the heart of any child in the vicinity.
Now, they may affect your sensibilities, but they have no sense whatsoever. These cute little cheepers with their tiny flutters and curious head-tilt will also suffocate one another at the drop of a hat and without the slightest provocation. They won’t mean to, they just naturally “pile up” on one another for warmth, security, or in reaction to any random startling thing that happens in their world. They need constant watching to protect them from themselves. We lost quite a few babies in the beginning, even knowing there wasn’t a lot going on upstairs and that they would need that.
They eat a lot in those first few weeks and we went through a decent bit of starter grain. Pretty soon, though, they graduated from their baby food and we opened their doors so they could free-range and forage at will. They have been ranging ever since and have taken care of their own fodder for the last 6 months. They’ve helped a lot with keeping our insect population down this year, and I am sure have enjoyed the bit of dessert they pick up in the way of the odd sprinkling of grain from other creatures’ troughs or feed bins.
And when we say they forage, they really do forage…wherever they can possibly get their beaks and claws involved, they will. Cat food, dog food, trash bags, garages, decks, and any door you happen to leave open (be it to home or car) are fair game for turkey raids. They have doggedly pecked and scratched their way through everything that wasn’t nailed down around here. But they’ve thrived and grown into handsome 20-25 lb birds with striking red-and-white (Bourbon Reds) or black-and-white (Narragansett) plumage.
They didn’t need as much water as ducklings (who are shameless guzzlers), but we had to be careful with the depth of water we allowed them: they are prone to swimming accidents. Now, turkeys can’t swim. But they think they can. Toppling into a bucket of water, sitting on one another while they slake their thirst, and when they got bigger, nosediving into the giant cattle troughs were all favorite and fatal activities for young turkeys. Some days it was a sad business having a flock of foolish turkeys. In the end, as wee chicks we kept the water level extremely shallow, and as young wanderers, we put wooden slats in the trough so the cows and poultry could still drink but none of our feathery contingent could dive in.
What do they do at night? Well, I’ll tell you. They do whatever they get into their fluttery little brains to do, no matter what you try to do to discourage them. At first, we set them up in a proper poultry house with roosts and nests and a way to come and go during the day but be safe from predators at night. You know, luxury free-range bird accommodations. Within a month, those ungrateful fledglings had flown the coop and disdained to return. Instead, they set their sights on trees, the tops of fences, the tops of stalls in the barn, the roof of our house, the tippy-top of the barn itself, and most brilliantly, the top of the dog run. This last foolish roosting plan resulted in quite a few unfortunate birds ending in the jaws of our carnivorous canines (the reason they aren’t free-ranging pups, because they have a taste for poultry), and was one of the most frustrating phases of raising turkeys simply because we lost so many to their own poor choices.
Faithful shooing eventually discouraged them from trying to become household family members and they returned primarily back toward the barnyard, deciding the barn was probably the safest and most peaceful of roosting settings. We do still sometimes find them on our roof or 8 feet up a random tree, however. But that’s turkeys for you.
Once we had our new field fencing up (replacing ancient existing fence lines) we tried to have the birds join the pastured crew on that side of the line and be ranging but a little more contained. My daughter and I set out to clip their wing feathers so they would stay in there and not roam so far. It was a wild, dusty, wing-flapping experience and when we were finished we realized we had mistakenly clipped BOTH sides of each turkey which meant that while their wings were shorter, they were still balanced enough to FLY. Sigh. All new ventures come with some failures. Next year we’ll try to do it the right way and see how it goes. We have hopes of hatching new turkey chicks in the spring from these pairs.
So, our little turkey flock is still a-roaming, the proud denizens of our homestead. They can be seen strutting regal and raptor-like about the farm, emitting regular puffs, twitters, funny hisses, and of course, a ringing chorus of gobbles. Every noise around the barnyard– voice, tractor, anything, sets off their funny vocals. They are very social, friendly birds and are our reliable welcoming committee. Now, that doesn’t mean the toms wouldn’t intimidate or peck at a small person (they like to fluff up and act like a fearsome gang) and as they are coming into their full maturity they have been increasingly territorial and prone to chasing small people. That said, they really like grown ups they know well. They follow us all over the place, love to congregate wherever we are, and will gobble and cheap in a cacophony of greetings whenever they see us. If you have the time to sit and converse with your turkeys you can really have a very nice, amusing chat. They have been a comical and beautiful addition to our farm. And of course, when all is said and done, they look great in a roasting pan.
Ballard Creek Pastures 