In april C and I decided we should raise some turkeys. He convinced me that it would be some of the best turkey meat I have ever had and I of course believed him. They were so stinking cute when we picked them out and they only cost $5 each. How could this possibly be a bad idea? So we bought 4 of them and brought them home.
At first the turkeys lived in a little box. They were in the house as it was too cold outside and they were cute little stinkers at that. They we loved daily by my kids, my husband, my dog, and even by me. We then built them a house that would compare to a dog house in size. We included a little pen so they could graze and enjoy the fresh air. This lasted maybe a month.
Finally we had to build them a big pen. C spent a lot of time digging holes with the help of a friend and his tractor. He put in 8-10 foot tall posts he had found on the property and made a huge pen for the four turkeys. We then nailed some 6 foot tall chicken wire fencing all around this huge pen. It was quite an ordeal.
We put the turkeys in the pen and C made them a little awning to hide/perch under so they could stay out of the sun or rain. It seemed like a great deal. Oh yea, this pen is located at the bottom of our ridiculously long driveway and at the bottom of the hill to the house right near the 2 lane highway.
This all seems great and wonderful, but then my dear husband elected to sign up for a few different training opportunities that would take him out of town for extended amounts of time. I have been pregnant this year and growing at an awesome rate with the baby, but these turkeys were growing quickly and huge. They turned out to be two hens and two toms and the toms were obnoxious. They strutt around every time they hear anything and they started sexually abusing the females on a daily basis. I felt bad for the hens (though they probably didnt care that much).
Anyhow, as we started to look back over the 5 months we had the turkeys, they cost us about $35 per month in feed. That is $175 in food total. Plus the time and effort it took to deal with them, which isnt too bad but enough to be annoying when you are pregnant and the turkeys are like 40 lbs of male testosterone and 30 lbs of female pushiness. We finally butchered all of them (ourselves because we couldnt find any butchers who will do turkeys this year) about 1 week ago. Thank goodness for that.
Oh yea, did I mention that it took C and I and two of our friends over 5 hours to shoot, pluck, and cut up 4 turkeys? Yea that added to my disdain for the turkeys as well. On the upside, I now have a huge Christmas dinner and Thanksgiving dinner bird in the freezer and a fair amount of turkey breasts and legs to cook up and eat over the next few months. So overall it is a win, but definitely not financially responsible or something we will do again.
p.s. I will miss their gobbles every morning and anytime the kids made noise outside, it was pretty sweet. Otherwise I will hold no sad sentiments to what has occurred here and why I will never do it again.
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