Talkin' Turkey: Our First Month

     Grab a couple of pallets and some old shipping crates.  Gather pieces of a once painted red dock, parts of a once painted brown pool deck, and scraps of a once painted white garden shed.  Add on shingles left over from a relative's roofing project, a couple of second hand windows, and some new latches.  Screw and nail everything to the top of a former boat trailer that was shortened by its previous owner to haul firewood, and what do you have?

     A "Turkey Trailer" to house our newest additions around here: two Bourbon Red Turkeys!  Although originally our second choice on variety (behind the Narragansett Turkey), these birds - who are believed to be a future breeding pair - should make for some interesting days ahead.  (In fact they already are with the constant tapping on their coop windows, tipping of their feeder, and a pain in the neck waterer that we purchased because it had better reviews than the other choice, that we've now finally gotten used of and love.)

     Like our other poultry, the Bourbon Red Turkey is a heritage breed.  Dating from the late-nineteenth century in Bourbon County, Kentucky, this breed was utilized as a commercial variety during the 1930s and 1940s; however, broad breasted turkey varieties would eventually replace it.  The Livestock Conservancy has more information on the history of the Bourbon Red Turkey.

Testing out their new roosts.

     Their 6' x 6' Turkey Trailer, which is my husband's take on an easily-movable coop on wheels so when we relocate their pasture we could easily haul them as well, is plenty large for two turkeys, and should be large enough for about a dozen who are given regular access to a larger area outside.  Magically, the Turkey Trailer didn't end up costing an arm and a leg, and managed to be completed in under a week.  Inside is an L of 2x4 roosting bars screwed into the wall, and also supported by a 4x4 post, a 5-gallon waterer on paver blocks, a large nesting area, and a wooden feeder (now screwed to the wall to solve the constant "tipping" problem).  The entire trailer is also insulated under its plywood ceiling and pallet board walls.  The base of the trailer - pressure treated boards - is covered with plastic paneling, like the chicken coop and brooder has, for easy clean-up.

     After being constructed in our driveway, the whole trailer, with the turkeys securely inside on their roosts, was towed down in the setting sun by the Ford Ranger to its first temporary home in the garden.

After some complaints from the Ranger, there is no way the mower can pull this.

     Once they made it to the garden, they hung out inside the Turkey Trailer for a few days to get settled in their new home before we released them to their enclosure.  The enclosure consists of an approximately 20' by 20' area of the garden that has not seen chickens or chicken manure for at least three years, which we staked with chicken wire and metal t-posts.  Due to the lumps and bumps in the garden, some of the chicken wire is also secured to the ground with U-pins that are used to hold down hoses.  Human access is through a wooden gate covered in hardware cloth.  After all that, the fun began of stringing the entirety of the top, so that it created a "visual barrier" for the turkeys below and other birds that may fly over above.  Since the wings of the turkeys were not clipped, it was important to keep them in, and I can assure you this crazy spiderweb of strings caused many a car to slow down.

Don't worry folks, she's just dust bathing!  Freaked me out a few times too.

     All-in-all, their first month with us has been pretty successful, aside for one minor design flaw with the enclosure.  The hen figured out that if she hops on top of their door, she can poke her head through the spiderweb of strings, and launch herself to the roof of the coop and freedom.  We figured out how she did it, and added a green plastic mesh above the strings near the coop.  It was working fine until earlier this week...

     The Mr. frantically called from the driveway on Wednesday night, yelling to "grab two flashlights and get outside!"  First I thought opossum as one has been regularly raiding the cat food dishes, followed by perhaps the foxes we heard yelping had found their way to the cockerels in the garden that had no secure underground barrier in their chicken tractor.  I had dinner in the oven and dessert set to go in as soon as dinner came out... I had just five minutes on the timer, so I hurried outside.  I met my husband in the yard, still in my slippers, with two headlamps (because darn'd if I couldn't find any flashlights).  He had a ladder.  (That's never a good sign.)

     Apparently, she had found a way out of the enclosure we thought we secured, and lo' and behold, the Mr. had pulled in to see the Bourbon Red Turkey hen on the roof of the greenhouse!  We still have no clue how she did it this time, which causes me to religiously check the enclosure multiple times a day (and in many cases a hour) to make sure she is still securely inside.

     There's truly never a dull moment around here!