I think Turkey is a girl. She's probably a breed called the broad breasted white turkey, one of the most common types of meat turkeys - like we are used to eating for Thanksgiving.
Her foot is still a little swollen, but this week she started roosting on the perch under the chickens instead of sleeping on the coop floor. I let her out with the rest of the birds now, and she lounges in the shade and eats things from the grass. She's very docile, and unafraid of me. Unlike the chickens, she isn't afraid of the hose, and sticks her beak right in the fresh water as I fill the bowl.
She's shaking dirt from her feathers in this photo, and I thought it was cool that her head and tail stay so still that they are in focus, but her back feathers swish so fast they blur.
She makes a pretty whistle that sounds like, "tweep, tweep" when she is excited for food.
This white hen isn't grumpy, she just looks that way!
White hen, white dog.
Can you see the tiny baby chick beak peaking out from under the wing? One of my hens sat on five eggs, but only one hatched. I put the hen and her chick in the brooder box inside my barn to keep them safe from predators and the other chickens. I have to work up the courage to reach into the box each time I change their water, because she puffs her feathers and attacks me when she thinks I'm threatening her chick.
Our neighbors are out of town, and Brandon has been checking on their flock of chickens while they are gone. Yesterday evening he came back without the eggs because each nest box had a hen sitting on the piles of eggs. He wanted to know what to do. When I told him he better move the hen and collect the eggs, he said I had to come with him because the hens might peck him! Ha! Who's a chicken, huh? We collected six dozen eggs - wow!
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