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Hello everyone! I am back from the family farm and ready to get to work blogging. I am sorry that Ferrebeekeeper has lain fallow for the last week (and seen scarce cultivation in the weeks before that) but maybe I can channel vacation energy into some thrilling new posts (and answer some long-neglected comments) before the daily grind reduces me back into an empty husk. Also, although I did not find anyone to take over writing while I was gone, I found some authors who expressed excitement over the idea of some iconoclastic and thought-provoking guest posts…so prepare yourself for that treat!
Speaking of treats, today features a topic which I haven’t written about for a long time: turkeys! When I was a child, I had a special fondness for the great birds, and the noble fowl still delight me (even if I have said almost everything that I can think to say about them). Fortunately when I stepped out of the study and out into the farmyard, I encountered the material for a new turkey post–in the form of new turkeys!
My parents keep a lovely flock of pilgrim geese (along with the remarkable tame wild goose named LG, who just showed up one day). Despite some run-ins with predators and the multitudinous snares of the world, the geese have been flourishing to such a great extent that my mother has been selling goslings to other hobby farmers and poultry enthusiasts. One such enthusiast had his own flock of hand-raised birds, and rather than paying for goslings with the coin of the realm, he obtained his geese through the most ancient custom of barter. Here is what he traded for his goslings: three adorable turkey poults–already grown to graceful near adulthood by the time I made it to the farm.
These turkeys are much smaller than any I have seen so far and are currently about the same size as a large chicken–an extreme contrast with the huge double breasted bronze turkeys which my parents raised five years ago which puffed up to seem like mastiffs or cassowaries (although maybe the surly disposition if the bronzes called such comparisons to mind). I could not ascertain a breed for these little turkeys per se, though my mother thought the farmer mentioned a heritage of red bourbon turkeys in their lineage. Whatever the case they were sweet and affectionate and evinced a particular fondness for my dad, whom they followed around like puppies when he was near.
To my eyes they seemed too pale and too small to be red bourbon turkeys. It is hard to tell in my pictures but they are pale orange buff on top of a French vanilla color. I think of them as the orange creamsicle turkeys, although perhaps they would not appreciate being affiliated with such tasty imagery (it is also possible that they are “buff turkeys” a reconstituted breed meant to approximate a vanished lineage). I am sorry that I obtained limited photos of the three birds, but I promise to follow up with adulthood photos of them later in the year (maybe for November when the internet and society reward turkey-themed content). In the meantime I wish the little birds well and I hope that they survive the foxes and great-horned owls so that we can see what a little creamsicle tom looks like when he puffs up and fans out his feathers. Speaking of which, hopefully one of the turkeys is a tom! it is hard to tell turkey gender until they reach full maturity. It would be sad if they are all hens (although turkeys do have an elegant but shocking cell bio solution for such a contingency).
ferrebeekeeper 