Turkey Check Up...

Well we still have Butterball and Snowball, the two turkeys we've managed to keep alive.  Or maybe it would be better to phrase it that they've managed to stay alive in spite of us.  However you want to think about it works for me.  They love free-ranging and we love having them free-range.  They have continued to be good foragers and have left the garden plants alone for the most part.  They are efficient eaters of all things creepy-crawly and green-n-tasty, they only seem to eat a small amount of commercial feed.  We keep some commercial feed available at all times.  They also get into the pig feed we soak for the pigs.  I think they think they have it made here, what a smorgasbord they have to choose from really!

They follow us everywhere as we go about our chores around the place, they even follow the boys down to the dirt pile where they play and then they follow them back when they head back to the house.  I truly adore all the sounds they make as we work in the garden.  I had no idea we'd enjoy turkeys this much.

Butterball checking out the freshly cut hay.

Butterball on the left, Snowball on the right.

I thought we were going to get some electric fence action here but Snowball was just after a bug on the post and didn't touch the fence in the process.  Good thing too, because that fence is really hot!

They have the darkest eyes and the strangest looking heads!

They are really cool animals.  We still aren't sure if we will do turkeys next year.  They were a rather expensive adventure to get started and we weren't all that successful in keeping many alive. We will keep thinking about it and see what we can afford to do next spring.  For now, we are really enjoying these two characters.