Living with Wild Turkeys

Continued from Talking Turkey (Part 2)

After my first experience raising turkeys and ducks, which included constant worries about protecting them from hungry, local wildlife, I decided to take a break from raising poultry. I hoped to spend time investigating better coop and free range run designs that could facilitate breeding heritage breed turkeys and saving up money to create a model facility for them. I still miss my turkeys, so in the meantime I my small farm would serve as a wild turkey sanctuary for the local flocks that share the land. The wild turkeys on the property were safe from turkey hunters and allowed to roam free and do their thing. I put out healthy grains for nesting mothers but otherwise did not interfere with them. Providing the wild turkeys a safe haven has allowed me to observe them and learn much more about their daily lives and social order.

I was blessed to have a rafter (or flock) of beautiful and smart wild turkeys share the land with me. Like my domesticated turkeys, they are very social and curious creatures. They are always on the look out for both food and danger. Sometimes they roam together, esp. when young, or individual turkeys will wander off on their own. They typically keep up with each other through a series of short calls. One cluck is used to just to say, “hey I am over here, where are you?” and others will respond in a similar fashion. Another more anxious call is used to call other turkeys over when they find something interesting such a large cache of a favored food item or things which just do not appear ‘normal’. For example, they are very curious about cut tree stumps and items like raised bed boxes built out of wood. I think they know they are looking at things that are not typically found in nature. Turkeys also have a variety of alarm calls to signify danger and these range from quiet calls alerting others to birds of prey in the sky to quite noisy ones used by mother hens defending nests against people or wild animals.

Wild turkey are generally brave creatures. They know themselves and their abilities which include the capability for running; fast, short flights; and defensive pecking or clawing.  Hens are particularly courageous when it comes to guarding their nests and baby poults. One mother build a nest right next to the driveway and I ended up having to put up a warning sign because she would attack passing cars. As soon as the poults hatched, she moved them to a safer location in the woods.

Ben Franklin is known to have discussed the virtues of the turkey and considered whether it might make a better symbol for the United States than the bald eagle. He lamented that the eagle often stole fish and game from other birds or creatures, while the turkey always sought out it’s own sustenance. Wild turkeys spend most of their day persistently searching for food. They scratch around the forest floor and in open fields for seeds, nuts, grains, small fruits, insects and more, often going quietly and unnoticed by other animals. I think they quite enjoy this hunt and seek lifestyle and pride themselves on their cleverness.

“Mother Earth gives to us an abundance of blessings to gather along life’s paths.”

Observing wild turkeys has much to teach us humans and we could all benefit from a little turkey wisdom. Cunning and courageous creatures of the forest, wild turkeys understand how to live in harmony with the land and each other. They know how to speak and be heard, and are tenacious in finding and sharing the abundance nature provides. Turkeys make use of their keen senses and agility to identify and escape dangerous situations. They can teach us how to be skilled observers and avoid unnecessary confrontations, leading us to the wisdom of how to live gently on the earth and with others.

To learn more about wild turkeys I highly recommend watching the PBS documentary My Life as a Turkey with Joe Hutto. He hatches a batch of wild turkey eggs and raises them alone in the woods, gaining deep connections and insights into what it’s like to live life as a turkey.

…continued in Talking Turkey (Part 4) | The Ancient Sacred American Bird That Traveled The World: A Turkey Tale, where I discuss the origins of the turkey and it’s ancient history.