Conversations with the turkeys, being captured by a cat squirrel, chores, freeing a stuck goat, a new nest of guinea eggs, beautiful weather, lots of produce from the garden, and a simple supper. It’s just another great day on the homestead.
One day over the weekend the kids were gone and it was just my husband and I home. So we had us a little date scooping poop, cleaning things up and doing some much needed fixing up to a few things. Now that everything is all switched up we have a whole new morning chore routine.
We also picked beans and the kids have been keeping busy with a few projects they came up with on their own. Who needs toys when you have sticks, paint, string and a bog box to play with?
When we started out with our first flock of chicks, we really didn’t have any plans on adding any other type of fowl to our flock. But then one day, when we stopped into the feed store to get some more chick feed, we saw that they had baby turkeys for sale. And well, one thing led to another and we ended up bring a few of them home. Assuming they’d do just fine living with the chickens, we put them in the coop with the chicks. They got along fine and we just figured they’d all coexist happily.
A few days later, I started doing a little research on raising turkeys. I know, I should have done that before we got them, but it didn’t happen. Lesson learned. So I came across an article that said that turkeys and chickens shouldn’t be raised together. I started doing more research on it and found the same info all over the internet. In fact, I found very little on raising them together successfully.
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This year, for some reason, turkeys have been hard to find. None of the feed stores in our town are carrying them, and stores in surrounding towns don’t have them either. We considered not getting any this year since the chicks we got a couple months ago are almost grown up and the thought of having to start over with a brooder and heat lamp in the house, when it’s warm outside isn’t very appealing. But after thinking about it, we decided that we might regret not getting any. Turkeys are the first animal we grew and butchered on our own. It’s been a tradition every year since we’ve been here to raise two turkeys for the holidays. While it’s not really necessary we do it, it’s something we enjoy. Summer just wouldn’t be the same around here without hearing the sounds of turkey chatter and gobbles while watching the turkeys graze and chase bugs as we sit outside in the evenings.
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Humble Little Homestead 