This is ‘Mama Turkey’. She is a very special bird, not by breeding or markings but by disposition. She had developmental issues early on and was raised for 10 weeks with chickens not turkeys. She is not much of a flyer unlike most female turkeys who can fly up to the rooftop of the house if they choose. Moreso than chickens, each individual turkey has a very unique personality. We had ‘Crazy girl’ who developed a new crazy trait each week, the oddest one being to fly up to our middle roofs and run around peeking in our bedroom/bathroom windows. We have ‘White girl’ who in the summer roosts in the highest boughs of our Ash tree, and Tommy the ever-devoted male, too heavy to fly that high, roosts down below on our deck railing and poops all night on the deck. There have been others but ‘Mama’, as we call her, is different. Although she clearly knows she is a turkey and easily socializes with the turkeys, she chooses to go in the coop with the chicken flock each night rather than trying to roost in all kinds of crazy places.
She is mellow and is the only turkey that comes towards me when I need her to rather than run away as is their instinct.
She goes broody each year. The first year she was mature enough for egg laying she raised two broods of chicks. She is the most gentle, natural mother. She still has the wild instinct, though, to go lay her eggs off someplace safe outside the field and then when she gets a clutch (a group of eggs) to nest on it. The trick is to be able to find Mama on her clutch; and then catch her at the rare moment she leaves it and put her on a nest of eggs you have already prepared for her in a brooding pen. She readily accepts a new nest which is also a really big deal. If you have ever tried to convince a chicken or turkey that this new nest you made is as good as the one they already had, you know what i mean. Some turkeys do not like to be picked up let alone moved from their nest. I have a sweater that looks like Wolverine got to it that as proof!
Our turkeys are heritage turkeys which can reproduce naturally (unlike broad breasted turkeys) and the hens go broody meaning they want to raise baby turkeys (poults if you want to be fancy!). And I will say that they are much better mothers than chickens. Chicken mothers are loud and brash, they have the ‘small dog syndrome’ always needing to compensate for their small size in the animal kingdom. Turkey mothers are much more in touch with their inner yogini. They are calm, talk in quiet purrs to the chicks and they can range with their babies earlier because no-one would mess with a turkey mom.
So Mama turkey is generally a quiet bird. She calls a let less than the other turkeys. She doesn’t really fly. But it’s pretty funny how she gets a bee in her bonnet about the young rooster she actually raised last year and chases him around the field until he flies out to get away from her. With a farm you know that the animals are not pets. The turkeys do not share the same range of emotion that a household dog or cat does. However, there are still some animals that are exceptional, that transcend the usual behaviors of their breed. And Mama Turkey is one of them.
