Mega-thread for all things animal besides dogs

[MarpTarpton]

Merged all this **** because you people are savages.

[Strakknuva225]

Merged all this **** because you people are savages.

damnit

[jakhollin]

Death to all Squabbits..

[saltmummy]

Consider the domestic turkey; the dumbest animal ever created. Wild turkeys can be pretty clever. Domestic turkeys will manage to get their heads stuck in fences with six inch gaps between the wires, or hang themselves by their feet from low hanging blackberry vines. The old legend about turkeys staring up at the sky in a rainstorm until they drown? Not a legend, I've seen it. Except for the drowning part, that can be prevent by moving around in their vicinity. Holding sticks too. The concept of "holding stick" baffles and frightens them. Makes them easy to move around though. Just standing around and they will wander up to you. Put a stick in your hand and they flip their **** in fear and confusion. The silliest thing is, when I first started giving mine bread, they wouldn't touch it. The bread scared the hell out of them. They didn't leave their coop for three days until the bread had dissolved into mush and/or was eaten by rats. Took them awhile to learn to eat the bread instead of running away from it, or attacking it. Good birds though, and as dumb as they are, turkey's are quiet social birds. They will die of loneliness if you keep just one. The eggs are a little bigger than chicken eggs, and harder to crack open. The membrane inside the egg is like plastic.

Also, unlike roosters, they won't attack you randomly from behind, or fly at you to try and spur your eyes. Roosters piss me off to no end. So sure of themselves and perfectly willing to go attack anything, even if it is bigger and more threatening than them. Of course, calling someone a "chicken" as a way of calling them a coward makes no sense when you have witnessed that suicidally aggressive behavior. We butchered four roosters all because one of them attacked my stepfather. We were going to butcher three of them anyway, but the one we were going to keep spurred him in the face while he was feeding them. Chopping the head off of an overly aggressive rooster is a very satisfying experience, but when they get more than about a year old, the eating the meat is like trying to chew iron.

[MarpTarpton]

Consider the domestic turkey; the dumbest animal ever created. Wild turkeys can be pretty clever. Domestic turkeys will manage to get their heads stuck in fences with six inch gaps between the wires, or hang themselves by their feet from low hanging blackberry vines. The old legend about turkeys staring up at the sky in a rainstorm until they drown? Not a legend, I've seen it. Except for the drowning part, that can be prevent by moving around in their vicinity. Holding sticks too. The concept of "holding stick" baffles and frightens them. Makes them easy to move around though. Just standing around and they will wander up to you. Put a stick in your hand and they flip their **** in fear and confusion. The silliest thing is, when I first started giving mine bread, they wouldn't touch it. The bread scared the hell out of them. They didn't leave their coop for three days until the bread had dissolved into mush and/or was eaten by rats. Took them awhile to learn to eat the bread instead of running away from it, or attacking it. Good birds though, and as dumb as they are, turkey's are quiet social birds. They will die of loneliness if you keep just one. The eggs are a little bigger than chicken eggs, and harder to crack open. The membrane inside the egg is like plastic.

Also, unlike roosters, they won't attack you randomly from behind, or fly at you to try and spur your eyes. Roosters piss me off to no end. So sure of themselves and perfectly willing to go attack anything, even if it is bigger and more threatening than them. Of course, calling someone a "chicken" as a way of calling them a coward makes no sense when you have witnessed that suicidally aggressive behavior. We butchered four roosters all because one of them attacked my stepfather. We were going to butcher three of them anyway, but the one we were going to keep spurred him in the face while he was feeding them. Chopping the head off of an overly aggressive rooster is a very satisfying experience, but when they get more than about a year old, the eating the meat is like trying to chew iron.

You are a font of information. Please continue.

[saltmummy]

*all that stuff I said*

You are a font of information. Please continue.

I'm not sure if you're serious, or if I talked too much. So I'll just put this here and talk too much some more.

They were kept in this pen until I built a second coop, expanded the yard, an separated them according to breed. I don't have nearly as many toms anymore, sold them off. The first ones I sold were stuffed into cardboard boxes the buyer brought with him. Kind of funny to see a turkey poking it's head out through the hole in the top of a card board box. The next couple I sold after that, I and the buyer didn't have large cardboard boxes, so we just put them into burlap sacks he had in the trunk of his car, which was absolutely hilarious. Throw them in that bag and they go perfectly still. I'm looking at old pictures of them and now that I am thinking about it, I find it strange that when they are young they seems fairly intelligent and brave, but turn into cowardly idiots as they age. Most of mine get stuck in the fences because despite the fact that they should know there is a fence between them, the white and brown toms will pace back and forth trying to walk through that fence and occasionally try to jump at each other. Then I find them later at night when I have to herd them in, hanging upside down from the fence.

Hard to tell what they will be afraid of sometimes. They don't mind the dogs or the various wild animals that come around sometimes, but they will flee from inanimate objects. They respond to just about any unknown noise they hear with that characteristic "gobble." Mostly when you go out to check on them though, the hens walk along the fence and look at you sideways while making a "cheep" sound while the tom puffs his feathers out and flashes them at you. It sounds a bit like they are asking a question, especially with the way they turn their heads, and the toms puffing makes a neat creaking noise.

also, babby turkey:

[MarpTarpton]

I was serious - this was all well worth the read. Farming and animal handling interests me and I enjoy learning about it like this because books are for nerds.

[Marinez]

Did some1 say dogs?

[saltmummy]

Beat it you! The dog thread is over there!

[Lusewing]

I love my chickens but I can certianly agree with the above comment about the agressive roosters - and about how satisfying it is to cook them up when they go to far ^.^