We haven’t posted about the turkeys in some time, but it’s spring, and it’s become a little interesting around the turkey pen this week!
Jenny (click any image to enlarge)
Most commercial turkeys raised for market can’t breed naturally, the Toms are simply too fat, but heritage breed turkeys are much closer to wild turkeys in build, and can breed on their own just fine.
A couple of weeks ago our turkey hen, Jenny, started laying her first eggs. In the beginning her eggs were scattered all over the place. When she started laying she didn’t even seem to comprehend what an egg was. Not all turkey hens make good mothers, and we weren’t holding out much hope.
However, to give young Jenny the benefit of the doubt, and to avoid her mate, Jake, stepping on the eggs and breaking them, we corralled the eggs to one side of the pen in the shade, and set them on a bed of straw. We opted to leave the eggs in the pen, even though Jenny wasn’t in the least bit broody.
This is Jenny and Jake, our pair of Standard Bronze - Bourbon Red Cross turkeys
Even though the eggs may not hatch, we were curious to see if Jenny’s behavior toward them would change as the clutch size increased.
Sure enough, after about the 5th or 6th egg, she started laying new eggs with the rest of the clutch. Jake also started to become much more defensive of the pen. In fact, he won’t even let me through the door!
This blur is Jake, defending the door...from me!
As such, Mr. Curbstone now is on turkey feeding and cleaning duties.
This last Friday I was outside painting our bee nuc box, and it kept sounding like Jake’s gobble was echoing off the hillsides. Every once in a while I was sure I heard a second turkey. I chalked it up to paint fumes, and an overactive imagination, and went back to painting. By the end of the afternoon though, I was finally convinced there was a second turkey, a wild tom, lurking just up the hill somewhere in the undergrowth. Either that, or Jake had perfected throwing his voice! We’ve never seen wild turkeys on the property, but neighbors have reported seeing them in the area.
Now that it's spring, Jake spends most of his time strutting around and gobbling
Early Saturday morning, as I was heading into the kitchen to make coffee, I spied a turkey…in the driveway! Apparently I still had turkeys on the brain. Perhaps I was hallucinating and just needed some coffee? I blinked a few times, and asked Mr. Curbstone if he could see the Tom Turkey standing in the driveway. “Yep, there is a turkey”. Great…now we’re both crazy!
Sadly, our trusty video camera drowned in the storms at the end of March, right after I filmed this waterlogged video. However, I did have an old pocket camera that could shoot short bursts of video. The lens is terrible in low light, but it was all we had, so I ran to the office to grab that.
Here’s the interloping Tom Turkey walking along our hillside, heading toward the turkey pen. The video is a little dark because it was still so early in the morning that I hadn’t yet had a single mug of coffee!
As you can see, the wild Tom marched straight up toward the pen, as if he’d been there a thousand times before. Maybe he had, and we hadn’t noticed? That didn’t seem likely.
What transpired over the next 90 minutes was Jake vs. the wild Tom. The two of them proceeded through a very ritualistic ‘dance’. At times it almost looked like a turkey staring at itself in a mirror. It went on…
Jake and the Wild Tom - Lean to the Right...
…and on…
...Follow Me...
…and on…
...Lean to the Left...
Two cups of coffee later the wild Tom started to walk around the side of the pen where Jenny was sitting on her eggs. She’d only begun to even sit on them in earnest a few days earlier. There’s a rise in the ground on that side, so the Tom was effectively standing above her, looking down. Startled, she hastily jumped up off the eggs to get away from him.
Jake was seriously NOT amused. Jenny is his, and he had no intention of being upstaged by this young Casanova!
Jake and Jenny
He charged toward the Tom on that side of the pen, and I winced as he got close to the eggs, expecting him to barrel through them. Then…to my surprise…Jake turned his back to the Tom, and tried to sit on the eggs. His wings we’re dropped around the clutch to try and shield the eggs from view. It was intriguing to watch Jake’s behavior, as up until that point I didn’t realize he was all that concerned about the eggs. I thought most of his posturing and defensiveness, at least toward me, was to guard Jenny, not the eggs per se.
Unfortunately, as Jake tried to settle on the eggs, I heard a loud POP! I knew right away that he’d broken an egg with his giant feet.
In Jake's valiant effort to guard the eggs he accidentally stepped on one and broke it
Up to this point, as we’re not always in the immediate area of the pen, we figured these two males had to come to some sort of agreement on their own, as we may not be here during a future encounter to intervene. Clearly though, the situation was escalating in the wrong direction, and I was concerned that although Jake’s intentions were noble, his clumsy feet might inadvertently destroy the entire clutch.
I walked calmly toward the pen, and quietly shooed the wild Tom away.
"Who? Me?!"..."Yes YOU...shoo!"
Ten minutes later though, Tom was back.
In this short video you can see him sneaking back down the stairs near the chicken coop.
The next day, he was back again, and making himself quite at home.
The wild Tom tries to show the hens what a pretty blue color he can turn - I don't think they were very impressed though
On his return though, he didn’t challenge Jake again, but just seemed content to stand by the pen, or the coop, or out in the weeds, and graze and preen in the sunshine, and Jake seemed less agitated too.
So it seems Jenny has a not-so-secret admirer lurking on the farm this spring. The turkey pen, like the bee hives, has certainly proved that ‘if you build it, they will come’.
This wild Tom can’t get to Jenny or the eggs directly, so both are secure. Jake’s clumsy feet only broke a single egg in the clutch, and as is typical of birds, Jenny’s instinct automatically kicked in after the egg was broken. She immediately removed the shell and disposed of it on the far side of the pen, and then rolled the remaining eggs in the clutch to a clean area of straw away from the spilled egg contents, even before we managed to get into the pen to clean up the mess.
Jenny's clutch is now up to 15 eggs, and she's been more serious about incubating them in the last week
So it seems that Jenny’s nesting instincts are finally kicking in, and she is tending to and incubating her eggs just as she should. Whether or not any will hatch, we’ll have to wait and see. Jenny does have an advantage being in the pen, as predators of turkey eggs include raccoons and opossums, and neither can get into the pen. Predators of young turkey poults include bobcats and coyotes, and we have plenty of those too, just ask Frodo! Although wild turkeys have very low hatching success rates, approximately 15%, with a 70-90% mortality of chicks, most of the losses are due to predation, which is probably why turkeys lay so many eggs in a clutch.
We’d like to give Jenny the opportunity to try raising her own though. If the eggs don’t hatch, next year we may try hatching some eggs in the incubator, but as we don’t have a secondary pen this year to separate the poults into if we hatched them ourselves, the eggs are better off staying with Jenny this spring.
When Jake is on alert he turns a vivid shade of violet blue
We’ll have to wait and see what transpires over the next few weeks. In the meantime, Jake will be keeping a very watchful eye on us…and the eggs!
I sure love the CVF stories…thanks!
I love that we seem to have endless material for them. Never a dull moment around here! 😛
Great post. Love the music with the videos. And I love being able to share your farming adventures.It is so cool that Jenny cleaned up after Jake’s little accident.
Thanks Barbara. I was impressed with Jenny too. She seems to be getting the hang of caring for her eggs 🙂
So interesting! I really love how Jenny cleaned up the nest. What will you do if you have 15 new poults hatch out? Exciting!
I’d be shocked if that many poults hatched. We have some friends interested in some poults if Jenny is successful, and we’d keep a few too. We get very many though, and I foresee us building a new turkey enclosure this summer. Although honestly, we probably need to do that anyway 😉
Wow! You all must never have a dull moment there at CV, what with the chickens, turkeys, Tom a’courting, the bobcat visits and now bees. 😉
It’s so neat to watch wild turkeys. I had quite a few at my old place in Ky. It wasn’t unusual to be sitting on the front porch having my morning coffee and have one or two (or three) wander by. I also saw them a lot out on my running routes there. They may not be the most graceful bird, but it is fun to see them take off and head for the trees. I never saw a lovestruck one though!
As I sit here, watching Wild Tom preening, standing outside the turkey pen, it really is rather amusing. He clearly is rather lovestruck, and seems willing to wait it out. I do feel a little bad though. He really should be off finding himself a girlfriend that isn’t already taken…but try explaining that to Tom! 😉
Wow! High drama! I’m just amazed what’s going on at your place, and thanks for delivering a fowl friday again.
I think we need to rename this place to ‘Drama Valley Farm’! There’s no end! Bob the cat was hanging around Frodo yesterday, and today Wild Tom is back! Maybe I should start a zoo? 😉
Another thrilling episode in the Curbstone Valley Chronicle where there is never a dull moment and no wild animal is unwelcome. What next?
Good question! I’d welcome a few owls! Nobody seems to have moved into our owl box yet 🙁
Clare, Wow, you could end up with turkey chicks. Exciting! I get a lot of wild turkeys on my property (and sometimes pecking for insects in the flower beds), but they are almost always hens and chicks. I’ve only seen a Tom once, and I didn’t manage to get a picture (although I do hear them gobbling in the woods all the time in the spring).
We could! That would be crazy, but as we’re not raising chicken chicks this year, it would be fun!
What might happen if you allowed your Jenny to mate with the wild turkey? I’m pondering the variables…
I dread to think! From a breeding standpoint it’s not a problem. Any chicks we get will be mutts anyway as Jake and Jenny are both heritage crosses. However, I think Jake would turn green with jealously if wild Tom got anywhere near Jenny, and probably fly into a rage. He’s bigger than ‘Wild Tom’, and I expect he’d be more than happy to rise to the challenge! Although, saying that, all seems quite calm and peaceful out the window right now. Jake is puffed up and blue, but Tom and Jenny are both standing around preening! 😀
Clare, this has brought back wonderful memories for me as I grew up on a turkey farm in Wisconsin. Of course we had a whole barn full but just seeing that beautiful Jake and Jenny really brought a smile to my face. We had a white we kept as a pet, named Charlie. I remember calling his name from the front steps and it would take him about 20 minutes to walk to the house. Of course he was always puffed up and strutting his stuff all the way to our front door.
I had no idea you grew up on a turkey farm, that must’ve been interesting! I don’t think Jake would come if I called him, he usually just eyes me with suspicion 😉
Clare, this was such a fun adventure with the video documentation. Why did Jake not raise up his tail? Or did I just not see it in the first video? It seemed like they would have more of a confrontation. This happens at the deer farm of my friend too. Big bucks come in and rile up the resident bucks. All for the ladies? I liked your blow by blow too. Fun narrative.
I think Jake had his tail up as the Tom first approached, but Jake’s tail feathers don’t have quite such an obvious pale band at the tips, and in the low light, it’s quite difficult to see.
Goodness, lucky Jenny…they are both warm for her form, apparently. ‘Drama Valley Farm’? Sounds like a reality show!
Your videos really tell a story. I wonder, have you ever thought of doing a longer video, your own documentary?
I prefer to be behind a camera, not in front of one! I’m pretty camera shy, so reality shows or documentaries probably aren’t in my immediate future 😛
The animals would have to be the stars then! It would be nice for your own records to edit some of these stories together to show the progress.
Really fascinating! I never knew that their faces could turn colors like that. How does that happen exactly?
That’s a good question Alan. The flushing of color in the heads of male turkeys is all due to changes in blood flow due to excitement. In a more neutral behavioral state, their skin is pinkish-white, but the blues and reds become very apparent when the males are either trying to impress the hens, or agitated as Jake was with me in that last photo 😉
Hi, Clare! Jenny and Jake are a beautful pair! Jenny is turning into a fantastic mother…all first time moms need a little time to figure it all out. I’m so proud of Jake…caring for his entire family – both Jenny and the eggs! Maybe the wild tom just wanted to be part of the group and had to prove himself worthy. I think it’s funny that he even tried his luck with the hens!!!! Love your videos!!!
It was funny seeing wild Tom all puffed up next the hens. The hens just looked right through him, as if to say “yeah whatever, we see that everyday” 😉
Dear Clare, I love this cute story and learned a lot! Never a dull moment at your place. P x
Never a dull moment…ever! 😉
Jack looks very impressive now that he has matured and I’m impressed too with his paternal instincts. Fowl Friday could become a book someday Clare.
A book…or two. I think Frodo, the king of CVF dramas, deserves one of his very own 😛
Maybe the wild bird is lonely?! Hilarious goings on, glad your birds have discovered their nurturing side.
I like the idea that the wild Tom just thinks Jenny is cute (makes for a good story anyway), but I think I may be wrong. I actually learned something this morning about wild turkey behavior. When wild turkey hens begin setting on their eggs, they go off alone, and the males then join up and hang around together. I’m guessing that’s why turkey hunting season coincides with nesting season, it’s easier to find groups of Toms together, and hunters always want the Toms. But I’m no turkey hunter, so I could be a little off. But it might explain why this Tom is hanging around so much. For him, this is what he should be doing at this time of year. So maybe he has a hen elsewhere on a nest, and he’s just hangin’ with Jake? Which also might be why Jake seems to be putting up with him.
Hi Clare – a lovely tale of rural life with turkeys. Fantastic observations on a high from paint fumes. Jake is beautiful when he’s mad! Waiting with bated breath to see if the eggs hatch. Was that the dulcet tones of Frodo in the last vid?
The funny thing is, I was using a low VOC paint! You have a good ear, that was indeed Frodo crowing for attention at the end of the second video 🙂
Honestly I was entranced by the story – like a TV soap opera 🙂
I hope some of the eggs hatch and the story can continue into the next generation!
I hope Jenny has some success too. Although I’m glad we don’t have chicks right now, it’s very cold and frosty this morning…especially for April!
I have real serious farm envy Clare. When can we come visit?
Well, at the moment if you came to visit we’d have to put you to work 😛 Actually, we’re hoping to do some sort of BBQ get together in mid-summer, just for fun, no manual labor required 😉 Stay tuned!
What a joy this was to read and watch! I enjoyed watching Mr. Wild Turkey flare his feathers as he first approached the pen. He seems to really like being near your turkeys.
Wow! This is amazing – I’m sure you’ve probably read Barbara Kingsolvers, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and her turkey breeding exploits. But to have Jenny being stalked by a wild Turkey – That’s just surreal!
Clare, What a compliment to your animal husbandry that a wild animal would love to visit. You might almost think he would enjoy moving in for good. Perhaps he has been rejected from other wild hens. Very curious behavior. Your Jenny must be irresistible. This is so precious. Beautiful photo of Jake in full attention. Good luck with the eggs . . . soon you will have little ones strutting about the pin. Frodo is fondly remembered.
I’m just happy that Frodo sounds a little more like a rooster, and less like a fog-horn these days 😉 He still sounds like he has a bit of a frog in his throat though!
I was telling my fried at the farm about your visiting turkey. They have loads of turkey there and I have yet to get a photo. My friend is building me a blind, so now I won’t scare them away.
Great to hear that Jake is finding his instincts as a protective Dad every bit as much as Jenny in finding her nesting instincts. Shame about the big feet!
I’ve just been catching up on the last hive post too Clare – it’s wonderful to see how quickly and happily the girls are settling in!
How very pastoral things look there. I’m liking the whole video idea. So entertaining.
fascinating!
What a life! I am always interested in your fowl tales. I bet every one of those eggs will hatch. I think Mr. Tom is lonely and wants a home. He knows a good set up when he sees one, but obviously he hasn’t heard about your Thanksgiving feast!
What a wonderful account of the going ons in your pen…always love a love story anytime! Im anxious of the safety of the eggs too, hope they are safe and hatch soon. Keep us posted Clare!
Lovely ‘Portrait of Jenny’ and fun video. Ah, the joys of spring!
The blue on Jake’s gobble-thingy (technical term) is beautiful!
You always have some new visitor there. I wonder how long the wild turkey will wait around? Maybe he’ll find a lady of his own out in the wild.
Can’t wait to see what happens with the eggs.