Monday, September 26, 2016

Not like the pictures

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.M26feec70f83c800eb399dcc925f14cdeo0%26pid%3D15.1&f=1


As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.

I settled upon wanting Naragansett turkeys, because they raise their own young supposedly. What kept me from it, is a few poults with shipping was like 150 dollars.

I did though get some old eggs and as reported earlier, we had 4 little turkeys hatched.

As they have grown I have noticed that these photos I have seen online in black and white turkeys and these sooty looking turkeys are not what I have. I know that turkeys get crossbred, and people screw with other people in selling them things which are not.......but in this mystery I found there are some kind of golden Naragansett, and I wonder if that is something which we ended up with.



https://saltspringislandheritagefarm.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dsc02787.jpg


Our turkeys are sort of a buff brown, with some definitive markings and with an undercoating like hen pheasants. From a distance they almost look mottled.

They are nice turkeys, quite tame and friendly. They love being hand fed grasshoppers and are pretty well trained. We had them in the porch in a brooder for a few months, until forced to put them outside, as they were fun to have around.

It is just the mystery of what we have in this breed of turkeys which appears  to be a sort of  different non standardized breed, unless it is coming from a main hatchery.

I see great potential in these birds as they are hard to see really or should be when sitting, which makes them less predator prone. I see the wild turkeys here and they are black from a distance and stick out like raisins in rice. It is just the reality of I have what I have and when it is all there is to breathe, you do not complain about the air.

I suspect there will be plenty of turkeys as our friend at the feed store was already hinting about hatching eggs, so these turkeys will probably populate much of this region eventually.

Thing is, they are not the broad breasted, so they will breed.............but I have a white and bronze hen here already, and they will be bred by these Naragansett for probably our eating turkeys for the holidays. That would please me, not so much the eating part, but producing something of poults as these girls have been sitting for 3 years and not hatching anything without a gobbler.

So some things good do come out of Massachusetts. Granted it had to be in 1776 in John Adams and turkeys, because Mitt Romney, Bill Weld of the Libertarian sodomy party and the Kennedy's are all a scourge upon the earth, but back in the day when Braintree was a farm and not a burb,  Massachusetts was a nice place.....except for the damn rocks in the soil.

These turkeys are never going to be roaster filling birds as turkeys are not like that in what they were, as that was the ingenuity of American breeders. They will breed though and they will do the things I love. I love talking to turkeys, listening to turkeys and one of my fondest memories is waking up every morning in the spring to our gobbler strutting, and gobbling and the hens purring. Gobblers when they "drum" are like grouse almost in there is a boom that comes out of them which is quite low and can  be heard through a wall like bass in a speaker.

I really like turkeys though and these birds bring me comfort. I simply do not know what I have really. I like them better than the pictures which are supposed to be the breed. The only thing I am certain of is they are our turkeys even if they do not look like what they are supposed to.


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