Turkey Tales

It is a beautiful day here and we are getting a lot done. Ralph has been rotary plowing the hay field that is going to be the potato patch. He finished the extension to the house garden last night with help from the turkey's and ducks and two Buff's.

One of the Royal Palm hens was fascinated with something in the new turned soil.

This morning Ralph got an early start to the huge project of breaking the new garden. The Poultry turned out in full force with the exception of one of the Chocolate Tom's and Fuzzy Face, one of the Chocolate hens. We were not unduly concerned as they spread out and sometimes are off doing other things, like eating or catching a nap.

However as the morning progressed I kept finding Fuzzy in the oddest places, like with the set of hens I have in the Utility building, ones that got hurt when we had too many roosters or my pet Henny Penny who has a bum leg. The turkeys don't usually hang out with the rejects! I though maybe she was thinking of laying when I found her sitting on top of two hens who were in their nesting box! I rescued the hens and rearranged a bigger box in the laying corner and then went back to work canning a batch of Chicken Feet Stock.

Now as lunch time rolled around Ralph came in to eat and I asked him if the missing Chocolate Tom was back....he said come to think of it "No, he is probably in the shade  in Bay 1 of the tobacco barn." I told him Fuzzy was thinking of laying and he said about time, those girls flirt but they are sure not delivering the eggs they should!

After lunch Ralph did a quick walk through of the barn, no sign of the turkey, now we were getting worried. The only good thing was there were no feathers scattered in a pile as there would have been if the wild dog had come back and killed him. Ralph thought he would take one more look out back of the house where they like to lay, no turkey there but he looked south to the sheep pasture and saw and especially fine "Wild" turkey displaying. Humnnnnn.....
Ralph called his turk turk turk call and that "Wild" turkey strutted even more and then headed toward the house.

Yes it was our missing turkey, there were wild turkey's down there but they were giving him a wide berth and he was so glad to be called from home. He hiked up the hill and got back to the farm out of breath and puffing. The first thing he did was  have a big drink and hit the feed trough!

 Gathering around the water for gossip and tales of wild turkey hens and far pastures!

Meanwhile back in the utility building Fuzzy was happily [well maybe not happily] ensconced in the nesting box. She was a bit stressed as it is her first egg and I am sure poor young birds are quite confused by this egg thing!  I filled the water trough for the ducks and saw Fuzzy wander out of the Utility building. I had to check and sure enough we have a beautiful turkey egg! She went to have a big drink too and started to eat grass and relax.

Just glad to have that ordeal over and be able to snack of new shoots of grass!

Turkey egg omelette's were a regular offering at New York’s legendary Delmonico's Restaurant in the late 19^th century. Now it is rare to eat them as turkey's are not heavy layers and the eggs are more useful as meat birds.

The eggs are so beautiful! This is a small egg as it is her first but they will get bigger. The white egg is a duck egg, the pale brown a Buff egg and the wonderful speckled egg was just produced by Fuzzy Face! It was still warm when I took this photo.

Here are some interesting nutritional facts about turkey eggs.
A turkey egg is 137 calories
A turkey egg contains 10.7 grams of protein.
A turkey egg contains 9.4 grams of fat
They have less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per egg.
However they also have 737 milligrams of Cholesterol!
1 Turkey egg will provide you with 56% of your daily B-12.

So goes our day, Ralph is still rotary plowing, the stock is cooling on the counter and we have our first turkey egg, seriously what more could we ask for!

God Bless you all and take care!