clipping wings

When we left to go to the grocery yesterday morning we noticed our turkeys and guineas a 1/4 mile up the road, walking in the road.  We stopped and were going to shoo them home but they took off like wild turkeys into the weeds.  We couldn’t even see them and one of them is white!  That made me realize it was time to try and pen them up again or we wouldn’t be having turkey for Thanksgiving.

 That evening they were waiting by the door for their bread treat and I made them follow me to the barn.  I put a little down and went and closed the back barn door, then tossed more bread into the barn and when they went in, shut them in.  I managed to get momma separated into a back stall, then caught her and clipped both wings. I took a chance that the young ones would stay with her and not jump the fence if their wings weren’t trimmed.  I then shooed all of them out the back barn door directly into the pen where the other turkeys and ducks are. 

 Momma turkey was quite upset.  She kept looking at and preening her wings.  Since she has had that done in the past I think she actually knew that she was now ( hopefully) trapped.  The youngsters were pretty much tired and ready for bed after they ate and jumped up on a fence rail to sleep.  She was wandering around making calling noises when I left for the evening.

 I expected to come out this am and find them all out in the front yard again but they were still there in the turkey-duck run.   After I fed them they wandered out to the back side of the pond to eat autumn olive berries.  Our other turkeys don’t seem to wander too much although there is about an acre fenced around the pond they could roam in.  They stay up close to the barn in the 20 x 40 smaller fenced area.  We leave the gate to the pond pasture open most of the time, which gives them the much larger area if they want to wander. 

 A great deal of the pond pasture area is fenced with 5 foot fence.  It doesn’t have a top rail, which makes it harder for turkeys to get over.  The smaller run area is 4 foot fence with a top rail on the west and north side, where the hen turkeys generally roost when the weather is nice.  The toms are too heavy to roost.  There is only a 3 foot tall fence separating the turkeys from the chickens.  If the momma or young ones jump that then the outer fence of the chicken run has a rail all around it that makes it easier for them to jump up and over and get into the yard.  So far the young turkeys have sat on the rail but since mom was grounded they didn’t go over, they got back down on the pen side.

 I believe the young turkeys are two toms and a hen.  We want to eat the white tom for Thanksgiving, he is getting big fast.  The other tom is bourbon red and what I think is a hen is bronze.  The other younger baby turkey is a bourbon red, but too young to sex.  It was not too happy with new turkeys arriving in its territory and challenged them a bit, which they just ignored.  I would sell any of the young ones, even the white one, if the price was right.

My toms were happy to see the bronze hen returned to the flock.  They put on a big display for her.  The two bourbon red hens are both molting and have no tail feathers right now.  The bronze hen looks so much nicer than them.  I don’t know if it was because she had a very varied diet and lots of cat food from the barn or if she molted early.  I hope she molted because that will mean the wing trimming job will last longer.

The guineas are a little lost without their turkey friends to run around with.  Maybe they will stay home now too and quit bothering the neighbors.  They were in the chicken run this am but I saw them back out in the front yard later.  I don’t know how to even trap those two.  And I am not worried if they disappear.