It’s Curtains, Turkey

So you think you might want to raise your own turkey? Bob and Jane Fleck of Canyon Country can tell you about their adventure.

“We bought day-old poults by mail,” Jane says. “If we do it again, we’ll shop around for some place where you can order fewer, but the smallest order we could get was 20 poults.

“They came in May and five immediately died. This is not uncommon. Another had weak legs--this isn’t uncommon either in domestic turkeys, since they’re bred for such huge breasts--so we ate it when it was the size of a very small chicken.

“Then, as they grew, one male and one female were weaker than the others and the bigger birds were pecking at them ruthlessly, a kill-the-weakest thing, so we put them in the chicken yard.” As soon, that is, as they were old enough not to be killed by a virus that chickens carry.

Since then they’ve given one bird away and roasted another. “Big mistake,” says Jane. “One turkey is way too much for two people.”

So now the Flecks have the two turkeys in the chicken yard and 10 living in a horse pen converted into a turkey run with chicken wire. When you walk up to the pen, the males “display,” bristling all their feathers to make themselves look more dangerous. Actually, it makes them look like very big, ill-tempered feather dusters. Their plumage is snow white except for one or two dark brown feathers per male.

The females look like huge white chickens on rather long legs, but the males have the characteristic fan-shaped turkey tail and grotesque facial wattles in various shades of violet-pink and slate blue, looking as if molten lava has been poured on their heads. Each has a wrinkled tentacle of violet-pink skin (the snood) hanging off his beak in a thoroughly disgusting way.

Turkeys raised for market are usually usually slaughtered at 6 weeks and weigh 12 to 18 pounds, but these birds are 20-odd weeks old and weigh about 30 pounds. The bottom line: The cost of raising their own turkeys worked out to $40 a bird, which the Flecks consider reasonable. They also like the idea that they know exactly what the birds have eaten and what medicines they have been injected with (viz. none).

“And we have absolutely no problem with eating them,” Jane says. “When you get to know turkeys, they’re amazingly stupid and mean.”

If you’re interested in raising turkeys or other poultry, a good way to get started would be to visit the FeatherSite web page:

https://www.cyborganic.net/People/feathersite/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html