Animals

The Great Turkey Debate

The great turkey debate is actually two separate issues.

The first debate is over the sex of turkey #3.

It is quite obvious that we have one "Tom",

as he spends quite a good deal of time strutting his stuff.

Of all the turkeys, he has the longest snood and is obviously a male.
His head is mostly red....
handsome, is he not?

Turkey #2 is most definitely a female.

She is much less colorful

and has just a small snood.

She is quite curious and sits beside me as I relax on their perch.

She has such soulful eyes, doesn't she?

This is turkey #3.

He/she has a longer snood than the female.

Its head is mostly blue with some pale red accents.

It puffs up a bit like the male,

but never puts on a showy display.

So the debate is this...

Is this a female, or just a non-dominant male???

The second debate is this.

If you have read my blogs for a while,

you will know that Hubbs and I have made

an attempt to be as self sufficient as possible.

With the ultimate goal of getting off the food grid,

we purchased these turkeys as just-hatched poults this past spring.

It was our intention to raise them as food.

We have one problem, though.

We are complete softies and have become attached to these

gentle creatures.

I suppose we could talk ourselves into eating them and

then starting new ones next spring.

I have read that these heirloom turkeys are quite tasty,

and much better than anything you can purchase.

So the way I would rationalize it is this....

We have given the birds a really good life,

much better than commercially grown turkeys have.

To buy a commercially grown turkey, would in essence

just be supporting an industry that we are totally against.

So, is it not better to humanely turn these birds into

Thanksgiving dinner,

rather than buy birds who have never seen the light of day,

and who grow faster than their legs can hold them,

ending up with painful arthritis,

and disease from such close living quarters?

What do you think?

Please give me your thoughts.

On another subject....

I wanted to share the beautiful foliage that we are treated to

here on the farm.

Oh, and we wanted to show you what Tyler

did on his 4 month birthday.

It's never to early to start!

Ride-em cowboy!!

Amazingly, Ollie didn't even seem to notice.

Let me know what you think
on both issues of the Great Turkey Debate.
To eat or not to eat????
That is one of the questions.

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