Turkeys

Sunday December 26 

In the late 1940s, Mam raised a dozen turkeys every year.They arrived as day old chicks in a cardboard box with a hole pierced lid.  The delivery van brought them from a poultry farm in Kidwelly. The annual delivery of Black Sussex crosses, layer hen chicks, and a dozen Rhode Island Red cocks for the table came from there too.Not all at the same time.

The chicks were soon transferred to the inside of the fender which lay in front of the fire.

 

This is the closest photo I can find to our fireplace, post second world war. Our mantelpiece and surround was less cluttered and the fender classier - it was made by an engineer uncle.Our candlesticks - present in all welsh homes that I knew - now live on our mantelpiece.

The fender was lined with newspaper, a sideways on box at the end for sleeping birds. A saucer of water and another for chopped hard boiled egg food completed the preparation. There they stayed for about a week, when feathers would make their spiky appearance and they were deemed strong enough to move outside.

 

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Mam always reckoned that turkeys were much more difficult than hens. She was never content until they'd been raised past the torri cochi stage (breaking red - the growth of the combs and wattles). Without warning, one or more would die. 

Once the wattles had started forming, they were allowed out of their pen, on to the graig behind the house.  Our home backed onto the lower hillside of a narrow river valley. The top was wet alder carr.

Usually, the turkeys would not stray far, appearing at the back gate for food as night approached. Sometimes, they didn't. One night, they roosted at the very top of a large old Bramley apple tree. I remember being instructed to climb a ladder and push a bird onto the ground. I must have been small, as dad moved the ladder around the tree with me still standing on the top.

On another occasion, they went missing. Wearing dad's wellies, I climbed the graig, eventually finding the turkeys over half a mile away. It involved a narrow path around a copse, climbing to the Llwynbedw Farm track, past the pond, through  a gate into a very wet Alder carr. I had to wade into the bog to encourage them out. When it was time to follow them out, Dad's wellies were firmly stuck in the mud. I had to herd this unruly mob home in my socked feet, armed with a long stick to gently guide them when they strayed. I got them all back safely - I must have been about 10 years old at the time. I was worried about the abandoned wellies. Dad chuckled, and said that he'd fetch them the next day. Phew.

We were all relieved when another local took over raising Christmas turkeys and we could stop. The Christmas preparation was another major occurrence. My father's youngest brother, Gerald, was the slayer. He had a method of killing them by slitting something at the back of the throat which meant that it was easy to pluck them immediately after death. I never witnessed that, nor did my parents take part. Mam had the unenviable job of preparing them for the table - and the favoured recipients.

 I have seen wild turkeys.When driving through the gigantic King Ranch in Texas. It took a day to drive through. A family was  seen the other side of the roadside fence.They're on my list - Jon Dunn said that they were genuinely wild birds, sought by American birders.