Chiken Gangs

Farm animals are incredibly entertaining and funny.  I swear I can watch them for hours and not get bored.  A lot of people think that poultry are not very smart.  I beg to differ.  Last week I was milking the goats in the barn.  The geese share the pen with the goats and during milking time they come running in hopes of the goats spilling their feed.  This particular day a turkey had flown out of the chicken coop and meandered into the barn.  The barn is fenced in half.  The back half is for the goats/geese and has access to their outdoor pen.  The front half is storage and the milking station.  This turkey had the same hopes as the geese, but had an advantage as he was not penned in.  Right as he went to grab a bite of spilled food the goose craned its neck and gave him a warning nip. As if the goose was saying "thats my food!".  The turkey, obviously not getting the message creeped up again towards the goats feed and again got a nip from the goose.  Apparently the turkey finally got the message and ran out of the barn.  Only to return a couple minutes later.  With the chicken gang.  See the turkey ran to the coop, told all the roosters about the mean old goose in the goat pen and brought the two biggest roosters and a hen back with him.  As if he was saying "goose, you may be twice my size but I have the biggest and baddest roosters on my side.  Don't mess with me".  I am not sure who won the battle in the end as the roosters got distracted once they were in the barn and in turn the turkey did too.  I think they found some spilled cat food far away from the goose's reach.  Ill leave you to ponder and decide for yourself if poultry really are dumb...  For generations people have been talking about how turkeys are so dumb that they will drown in a rainstorm from looking up at the rain.  I highly doubt the validity of the story. I think turkeys are just curious.  And as long as they have the roosters on their side they will be just fine...

We got Turkeys!

Hubby calls chickens a "gateway" animal, meaning once you have them you will most likely add more animals.  When the chicks were little we had a brooder set up for them (a safe cage with a heat lamp).  Now they are huge and in the chicken coop, the brooder is sitting empty.  On Sat, we were in town running errands, and someone made us an offer to buy the rest of their turkey poults.  Knowing we had everything we would need already set up at the house we jumped on the deal.  We now have 8 Spanish Black turkey poults in the brooder.

  Most commercial turkeys are non reproducing.  The have been bred for certain benefits that are not found naturally.   The hens need to be artificially inseminated to continue the breed.   If you want a huge turkey and don't mind buying new poults each year then its not a big deal.  However if you want a female and a male to produce their own offsprings you need to have a heritage breed.  Black Spanish are just that.  They are capable of reproducing on their own which is what we are looking for.  I figure we should be guaranteed a pair out of the 8 we brought home.  The others can be butchered in the fall for our freezer.  They are so little!  They wont get nearly as fat as the commercial breeds, but that is ok with us.