The Turkeys are Enjoying the great outdoors

As farmers there is simply nothing better than seeing your livestock enjoying life to the full.

Last week we opened up the ‘pop holes’ and let the turkeys out into thier fields and to say they are enjoying themselves is an understatement.

As naturally very inquisitive birds they were straight outside and exploring everything their paddocks had to offer.

We allow the fields to completely do their own thing once the cows and calves have moved out (in spring we use these paddocks for our nursery fields after cows have calved) which means that they are full of a plethora of goodies for the turkeys to enjoy. They particularly love munching through the ‘Fat Hen’ and ‘Docks’ both of which seem to grow in abundance!

At nightime we shut the turkeys in to keep them safe from any roaming predators. This actually takes a bit of time, some turkey training and lots of patience. After a few days they get the schedule and head for the sheds when dusk falls. We pop a light on indoors which helps to guide the birds in and the sheds are uphill from the fields which helps as they naturally want to get higher to roost.

We are delighted with how the turkeys are looking and all are growing on well for Christmas. Although they are in the ‘teenage’ times at the moment so they are looking a bit on the lanky side!! They have now finished growing their skeletal system and will be filling out over the next few months.

Talking of poultry we have been super busy yesterday cleaning our goose house out. Now when we built the shed we didn’t think about the need for getting a tractor in – this as it turns out was a huge mistake! It took will and I 6 hours of solid shovelling to get it spick and span once again. Last year we hired a nifty ‘Bobcat’ machine for the task, this year it was unavailable as it was already out on hire. Lets just say next year we are getting booked in early!!

The geese or as Flora calls them the gooses are looking marvellous and really are quite the sight to behold when they all set off across the hill, wings outstretched and in full ‘honking’ voice.