I just hate it when...

We recently brought home a breeding pair of blue slate turkeys. My track record with keeping poultry unmolested, or even alive, has not been very good. My friends ask me if I've killed any chickens lately and they don't mean for the freezer. They chuckle at the facts of my miserable management of a flock. They have even felt sorry enough to gift a few birds to us after a recent massacre. Surely those birds had no idea they were headed for Euthanasia Ridge.

Having had such a crappy record of poultry protection I was ever so diligent in the preparation of the turkeys new digs. A 10'x10' dog run with some roof metal wired across the top and additional chicken wire to make this the Fort Knox of turkeydom. A cool nesting box made from some left over cedar siding with metal roof and a feeding trough completed the cozy and secure confines.

You can understand my utter disgust when I found that the pair had sliced open nasty wounds on their breasts on the corners of the nesting box. The dogs had been harassing them causing them to try and flee. I was sure the hen would not make it through the night. The plan was to super glue the skin flap but I was just sure that I was going to have to put her out of her misery.

The next morning upon returning from work I was amazed she was still alive. She was eating and taking water but I still assumed she was in shock and would soon expire. I was ready to cut her then changed my mind thinking that she was a pretty tough bird for having made it through one night so she deserved a chance to see if she could pull through.

She has done more than survive. She has thrived in her recovery. She has become a friendly, inquisitive and healthy egg laying turkey. Far from the normal doom and gloom of our usual poultry stories.
She is one bad mamma jamma. The new feather growth has nearly covered the area of the wound although a large scare still carries a scab.