Talking turkey
Bird proves poultry can have personality,
I have a pet turkey. Sort of.
Her name is Connie — short for Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, the largest city in, well, Turkey. Connie is more curiosity than pet, really. She, unlike the skittish chickens I’ve raised, approaches me. Enthusiastically. Turkeys. Are. Different. “How ya doing, Connie?” I ask her each morning — rhetorically — as she lets me (implores me to) scratch her bumpy, dinosaur-like head. Do it long enough and Connie crouches, closes her eyes and coos or purrs or whatever sound turkeys make when they’re comforted.
For those wondering if this is another tale from a wannabe vegan or recent convert to Birkenstocks, Bob Dylan and homemade hemp, consider this: When Connie follows me, step for step in our barnyard, it’s in plain view of my six other, younger turkeys, kept in a separate pen, who are not curiosities. Those turkeys are, to put it bluntly, meant for supper and sandwiches.
Last fall, I decided to keep one turkey from the flock as an experiment. But my turkey-versus-chicken observations started long before that.
“I gotta say,” I told the guy at Morrison’s Custom Poultry Processing in Omemee, Ont., about 10 years ago as I handed over that year’s bounty, “I have zero misgivings about parting with chickens. They have zero personality. But turkeys, well . . . ”
His response was almost rehearsed. “Everyone with turkeys says that.” Whew. I wasn’t alone.
There was nothing particularly unique about Connie in those early days. She was a random choice, though I did specifically choose a female. Male turkeys (toms), I’d noticed, could become aggressive toward me as they matured, especially if they thought I was interested in their female counterparts. That’s a fight I wasn’t interested in.
When there were no other turkeys, Connie, though in the company of chickens and a few ducks with which she consorted nicely, slowly became more interested in me. Her head perked up every time I said her name. She started eating from my hand. She became a soothing presence. Eleanor Reed, a professional forester, can relate. “When I enter their yard,” she says, “they always come to me.” Even when she’s empty-handed.
“A chicken is like a meat machine, whereas a turkey seems more like a creature with feelings,” says Reed. “I look into their great big eyes and wonder what’s going on in their heads.”
While she, too, concedes to mild melancholy when dropping off her turkeys for processing, it’s not enough to warrant a drastic lifestyle change.
“Because they taste so good,” she says matter-offactly.
I can’t dispute this. But Connie will never see a roasting pan, I’ve resolved. Even my wife, a bornand-bred farm girl, concedes she’s warming to Connie when it’s her turn to do morning chores. My 14-year-old son, Jonah, now often wanders over after getting off the school bus to pet and talk to her.
“It’s pretty typical of an imprinting relationship,” explains Ian Duncan, an animal bio sciences professor at the University of Guelph, about my connection to Connie.
“(Poultry) learn to follow the first large-moving object that they see. And you’ve been her first large-moving object, so she regards you as a mother or father figure.” I had to ask, “Um, not as a mate?” “No,” says Duncan confidently. “It’s more of a parental relationship.” Again, whew. But why not that relationship with my chickens? It comes down to numbers, he says. I raise about 70 meat chickens at one time, but only six turkeys. So I’m competing with far fewer of Connie’s species for her attention — and adulation.
“She regards you as a kindred spirit,” Duncan explains. “Not the other birds.” Denis Grignon, his wife, two sons and assorted chickens and ducks (and Connie) live on a farm near Lindsay, Ont.