#this is the funniest reason to foray into kpop fandom

[gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun]

It is time for me to talk about my turkeys, because I love them.

A couple of years ago my mom ordered fifteen heritage chicks in the mail, I was horrifically depressed and as we put them into their crate I held each one and bawled my eyes out over the little fluffs. One died within the first day or so (fairly typical) but the other fourteen did great. I named them after the members of Seventeen (yes, the kpop group) and because they were mixed breeds I could tell them all apart - although I had a bit of trouble with Woozi and Woozi Jr (they were both mostly midget white, so they looked identical apart from slight size differences. Woozi Jr is not a member of Seventeen, but I needed an extra name). One of the turkeys (The8) lost his wing when one of our dogs got a hold of it through the pen they were in, but he lived and recovered. I spent hours holding and playing with my turkeys, and when we moved them to the field they would follow me around whenever I was outside. Between selling most of them and losing a few to owls, we only ended up with Vernon and Wonwoo for thanksgiving (we bought them as meat birds, sad but natural), but thankfully I got to come home from uni early enough to say goodbye and cuddle them one last time.

This year we had a friend incubate a dozen eggs from a heritage turkey farm. Between a few not hatching and a few dying from “oops I rolled onto my back and couldn’t get up and even when the people help me get back up I’ll just do it again until I decease” syndrome, we ended up with six healthy chicks. Their names were Famine, War, Death, Pestilence, Pollution, and Corruption. PP&C are living with our friend as a breeding trio (pretty sure the tom is Pestilence, even though it was hard to tell them apart as babies - Pestilence was an absolute pain and very precocious). Famine got injured a week or two ago and had to get butchered, which was very sad, but we ate him for thanksgiving, and Mr Death is a big fluffy cuddlebug, since I socialized this set almost as much as the last. War is doing well, too, but she had some sort of growth defect and is more the size of a chicken than a turkey. Also when I pick her up she screams and screams, despite being too tame to know that running from me is an option. She’s a goofy lil thing.

although baby turkeys are precocial and leave the nest almost immediately after hatching, they still rely on their mother’s protection. turkey hens are fiercely protective of their young, and will fight predators such as raccoons and hawks to keep them out of harm’s way.

(x)