The Poultry Princess: My Turkey Doesn’t Love Me

This is the 13th installment in a series of observations about keeping chickens (and in this case, a turkey) from guest contributor Heide Royer.

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My turkey doesn’t love me. She just wants me for my body.

I thought she loved me. I really, really did. Every morning, I went to visit DJ, my Narragansett turkey hen. She happily awaits for my arrival and flies up on the porch railing to greet me. I’m referring to the same DJ that I pieced back together last year after a vicious fox attack had filleted her neck wide open, the one I doted on, day in and day out, as she recovered for weeks on end. I hand fed her and changed her dressings several times a day. She even has a dangling piece of skin on her neck as a reminder of that terrible day because I was too scared to cut it off, barely being able to see past the blood, but managing to piece together the sections I could. We have a special bond, one that I thought could never be broken.

The day of the betrayal started when I needed some unwinding time, so I let the turkeys out in my backyard as I do often, sat down in my brown, wicker patio chair and just watched them flutter and fly around. DJ, my sweet loving girl, never left my side. In fact, she’s always right by my feet. I picked her up and sat her in my lap, caressing her smooth grey and black feathers, marveling at how this massive Narragansett hen was tame enough to allow me such a luxury. How gentle and kind she was. Wow.

Turk, my big Tom, never strayed too far from us, always keeping a watchful eye on me. I’m sure it was to monitor that I didn’t harm his prized girl. It’s slightly intimidating looking at him, knowing that if he wanted to, he could do some serious damage to me with his long, sickle shaped claws and sharp beak. I smiled and reassured him that she’s in good hands, and that I loved her too.

Time was getting away from me and I needed to get back to work. I gently placed her down on the ground. She lay at my feet motionless, mouth gaping open, and in general, looked really freaking weird. Turk knew this body language meant time to “hit it and quit it”, and started the cool and calculated ascension up her backside. Being a rookie at this, I didn’t know what was going on or what to do! Chickens are so fast when they do the chookie nookie and here he was taking his sweet 35 pound time, looking like a feathered basketball trying to roll on top of an amorous quail. I felt he was crushing her much smaller frame and the look on her face wasn’t one of taking a ride to Poultry Pleasuretown.

I panicked. I stood up and tried to shoo him off of her. When that didn’t work, I picked him up and physically moved him away. Problem was, I naively intervened in his “coitus dontinterruptus” and he wouldn’t stop air humping. He was humping and pumping like a hot and bothered West Texas oil rig that was powered by Pamela Anderson Bay Watch posters. I was mortified. For ten minutes this went on. I thought I broke him. I was going to have to take him to the vet’s office to make sure his “testurkles” were ok, or deal with a Quasimodo looking turkey for the rest of my life, hunched in half, walking and pumping forever off into oblivion. I’m not sure how I was going to explain that to the ladies at my next in-home Bible study since everyone has to walk by the turkeys to get to the front door.

What later dawned on me is that every time I’m around DJ she does just lay down in front of me, she’s submitting to what she thinks are my desires. That little Jezebel!

Conclusion is, she doesn’t love me, she just thinks I’m going to schtup her. Since I won’t be part of her poultry pornography escapades any longer, I now take it upon myself not to mess with something that’s been happening since the dawn of time, successfully creating millions of little poults and turkeys to fill the earth.

I’m just going to offer her a shot of bourbon and a high five before the next time.

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Thanks to Heide for sharing her story and photos, used with permission.