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Talking turkey

Gail P
September 25th, 2010, 11:07 PM
I seem to have become a turkey pied piper. Everywhere I go outside, my turkeys follow. If I'm in the garden, they come under the horse fence and join me. If I'm up by the house, there they are. If I dare walk out towards the coop :eek: they come running and flapping towards me...the whole flock of them. Then they surround me and we go for a walk together back out to the coop. I have raised turkeys for a lot of years and although they are always curious birds I have never seen any quite like this. I may have to stop letting them free range though, yesterday when I went out to town they heard my friends talking out on the road (they were riding by) and decided to go out on the road to meet them. The story my friends told of the great turkey roundup was so funny I laughed until I was crying but I can't have them going out on the road.

Here are my crazy turkeys:

There she is, let's go get her!
69393

Look at me, aren't I pretty?
69394

You're gardening? Okay we'll help. Ohhhh, nice garden!
69395

Gail P
September 25th, 2010, 11:14 PM
Nice pumpkins
69396

We'll wait here. Maybe the Great Pumpkin will appear
69397

Hey look! Where's she going? What's she doing?
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Gail P
September 25th, 2010, 11:21 PM
Looky, looky...what's this now? Anything in there? Can't see a darn thing through those dark windows!
69399

What's that sign say? I can't read it, can you read it?
Oooooh! Shiney! I can see myself in the bumper!
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I got it! I got it! It's okay guys....it says Goodbye Goose, not Goodbye Turkeys.
69401

14+kitties
September 26th, 2010, 11:39 AM
Great pics!! Between marauding bunny rabbits and galloping turkeys yours and your neighbours gardens should be well protected!!
We have three neighbours now who free range. Funny only one of them allows his chickens on the road. He has lost about 5 or 6 in the last year but still expects people to slow down and stop if his chickens are on the road. It doesn't happen. :(

Gail P
September 26th, 2010, 11:48 PM
Great pics!! Between marauding bunny rabbits and galloping turkeys yours and your neighbours gardens should be well protected!!
We have three neighbours now who free range. Funny only one of them allows his chickens on the road. He has lost about 5 or 6 in the last year but still expects people to slow down and stop if his chickens are on the road. It doesn't happen. :(

You have 3 free-ranging neighbours? Do they do well living off the land and foraging for themselves? With winter coming I hope they are able to find enough to eat. :D
there's that twisted sense of humour again:o

14+kitties
September 27th, 2010, 11:12 AM
You have 3 free-ranging neighbours? Do they do well living off the land and foraging for themselves? With winter coming I hope they are able to find enough to eat. :D
there's that twisted sense of humour again:o

Funny thing. They are "free range" for most of the year. In the winter they are penned and fed what I think is called mash? I guess that's fine but for the one who sells her eggs for $5 a doz and calls them free range eggs it seems a little underhanded. :shrug:
The one neighbour just started with his birds. I don't think he knew what a farm was until he moved in last year.

chico2
September 27th, 2010, 11:51 AM
gail,love the turkey-pics:laughing:although thanksgiving is coming up:(
at least your turkeys are having a great life,even if it is short.

Gail P
September 27th, 2010, 02:00 PM
Funny thing. They are "free range" for most of the year. In the winter they are penned and fed what I think is called mash? I guess that's fine but for the one who sells her eggs for $5 a doz and calls them free range eggs it seems a little underhanded. :shrug:
The one neighbour just started with his birds. I don't think he knew what a farm was until he moved in last year.
I was just trying to be funny (didn't work I guess :o ) I know you meant the birds but you said the neighbours free range...I was picturing the people out foraging instead of the birds. ;)

As for definitions, free range is just that, free range. But, a lot of places now are selling what they call free run eggs, which basically just means the chickens are in a pen, not caged individually. I think there is some confusion with the two definitions and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

I also used to feed laying mash to mine plus let them out every day. I've switched them over to just scratch feed now though and getting out every day. In the winter there's not much choice other than to keep them in. On sunny days with little wind I'll open up the coop door but my chickens don't go out then. They do like to sit just inside the doorway in the sun though.

gail,love the turkey-pics:laughing:although thanksgiving is coming up:(
at least your turkeys are having a great life,even if it is short.

Yeah, today I trucked the dogs to a nearby trail for a training run and when I came back the turkeys were waiting for me, up on a little deck beside the driveway. I let Rain shoo them back to the other side of the fence before I let all the dogs out of the truck.

14+kitties
September 27th, 2010, 02:03 PM
I was just trying to be funny (didn't work I guess :o ) I know you meant the birds but you said the neighbours free range...I was picturing the people out foraging instead of the birds. ;)

:o Oh DUH!! :wall: I got that when I went back and read what I wrote. Guess I shouldn't be posting without checking my sentence structure. :o:p

Frenchy
September 27th, 2010, 02:12 PM
:laughing: too funny ! I think your turkeys have been around the dogs too much , they may be thinking they are dogs !

Dog Dancer
September 27th, 2010, 03:08 PM
I was thinking they'd better be careful with Thanksgiving coming up too! How cute though that they follow you around. So, to be the devil's advocate, will they end up being dinner or are they for the dogs to work??? I was thinking the lovely one who you said was saying "aren't I pretty" would do better to downplay the attention she garners in October. Oh, I understood the joke regarding 14+ post and thought it was funny!

Gail P
September 27th, 2010, 09:01 PM
:laughing: too funny ! I think your turkeys have been around the dogs too much , they may be thinking they are dogs !
You might be right. They keep coming under the horse fence right beside the trough and then hanging around the gate to the backyard where the dogs often are. Today when my daughter was walking up the road from the schoolbus they were out in the field up closer to the road and she was trying to hide from them behind the bushes along the road so they didn't see her and go out to the road to meet her. She came in and told me then that we had a lawn full of turkeys. They went down the driveway to meet her. Maybe they want to follow her to school. Instead of Mary had a little lamb....Maria had a flock of turkeys :laughing:

I was thinking they'd better be careful with Thanksgiving coming up too! How cute though that they follow you around. So, to be the devil's advocate, will they end up being dinner or are they for the dogs to work??? I was thinking the lovely one who you said was saying "aren't I pretty" would do better to downplay the attention she garners in October. Oh, I understood the joke regarding 14+ post and thought it was funny!
That one is actually a he, not a she. It's the tom turkeys that like to strut around showing off. And yes, they are all destined to be dinner. sigh. I do like my turkeys a lot but I raise them for meat, chickens too, besides the laying hens that I have. I've always enjoyed having turkeys but I have to not loose sight of what I get them for each year. The ducks (some of them) are for the dogs to work, but I also hatched a bunch to raise for meat for the dogs. I'm keeping my original ducks from last year plus a few more of the young ones to increase the flock number to 8.