The turkeys are a constant source of entertainment here at our little farm, but lately even more so.
Two of our pretty toms
The first thing was when I noticed a turkey grab something in the grass and start running around with it. At first I thought it was a gecko lizard, but really fat! Then I looked a little closer and it was a mouse! The turkey had caught and was eating a field mouse! They are really good at grabbing bugs and the small tarantulas that make holes in the ground, but that was a first to see one snag a mouse like that!
Apparently chickens aren’t the only ones to eat mice if they can catch them! Check out the video:
The next turkey surprise happened as Britton was getting ready to walk down to the cabin. He heard some chirping sounds next to one of the piles of wood. As he looked down he saw a turkey hen sitting on a nest of hatching turkey poults. He pulled one out to check on it and the poor thing was just completely covered in ants stinging and biting at every part of it. Even the eyes! Poor baby finally hatches out of the egg and is met with a harsh world! So we cleaned them off and tried to remove any other egg shards and ants that we could and then put them back with the mom, but the next time we checked they had died. Probably from the ant bites or the mom standing up trying to shake off all the ants from her body as well.
So we decided to bring the remaining ant-covered eggs into the house. One of them was rotten and luckily we noticed BEFORE bringing it inside. You can tell a rotten egg because it is super light and with just a light tap it exploded like a lightbulb with a POP. Three of them had little beaks pipping through (and ants crawling in and out), but the other one had no sounds coming from within, so I placed that one under a broody chicken. We cleaned up the three beaky eggs, set up the heat lamp and waited not knowing if they would survive or not. But lo and behold, here they come out of the eggs! What a process of pushing and chirping and resting. The first one came out about 6 hours after bringing them inside and the other two not long after that. Of those three, two have survived and are again living inside with us. It was a hard start for them but I am glad we could help out or I am not sure there would be any survivors.
The first one not long after hatching: a sleepy, worn-out baby
Watching the eggs hatch was so interesting and heart-wrenching. Such a difficult thing to do: coming into this world. It was so hard to not help them remove the shell, but all the experts say that they need to do it all themselves. The hatching process is important to make sure they bring all of the yolk inside and are strong enough for the outside world. So we were sad to see so many of the babies perish but at the same time we were overjoyed by the new little peepers.
Second baby turkey hatching
We get to watch all of these little mini-dramas going on right outside (and sometimes inside!) every day. And while these two examples may seem worlds apart, they are actually connected. They are great reminders of the circle of life, the struggles to survive and the beautiful fragility of it all.
