Poults
Early this morning we added to our garage menagerie fifteen fluffy turkey poults. Ordered from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa, these very rare turkeys are a breed called “Chocolate.” We hope they turn out to be as delicious as they sound, but in the meantime they are just awful darn cute.
All boxed up and ready to travel. It’s amazing to me how we’re able to ship live poultry in little cardboard boxes.
At first glance they really look just like baby chickens, and are the same size if not smaller. A poult has perhaps a slightly smaller head and more of a neck than a chick tends to have, which is none. But when you pick them up, you can definitely tell the difference. Turkey down is much softer even than chick down, and the babies feel like the cushiest velvet. The poults also feel squishier to handle, perhaps sort of floppy, and just seem to be very very fragile.
Sweet Chocolate turkeys!
Which they are – all poultry books warn that as a rule, turkey babies will require more care than chicken babies. These are every bit as loud as the chicks we’ve had, but do seem less vigorous and prone to hopping about. They seem healthy enough, but just do act a bit slower. Apparently turkeys are not very smart, and you’ll read the odd anecdote about turkeys drowning as they look up in the sky drinking raindrops. But heritage, older breed, turkeys like these are, reputedly have retained quite a bit more brainpower. We’ll see.
For now, all we really need to provide is heat, water and food, so that’s pretty easy, especially since the garage is already outfitted with several heat lamps hanging over several other tubs holding a pig and six ducklings, all of whom need protection from the still-chilly weather. We froze here two nights ago, literally, waking up to frost on the ground and a morning temp of 34 degrees. But it is cozy in the garage, and humid, with all of those ducks and their crazy water splashing. In fact, the garage is tons warmer than the house, which we’ve stopped heating. Our poor Angora rabbit, Honeybun, who is the permanent resident of my garage wool studio, thinks she’s been relocated to a jungle!
