hungry month 317So far, though, my turkeys had stayed hale and hearty and I’d taken all
the doom- saying with a grain of salt. Virtually all turkey- info sources in
existence (including my friend with her drop- dead Freds) refer to the
Broad-Breasted White, the standard factory- farm turkey that’s also the
choice of most hobby farmers and 4-H projects, simply because the alter-
natives aren’t well known. My heirloom Bourbon Reds were a different
bird, not bred for sluggardly indoor fattening but for scrappy survival in
the great outdoors. They retain a genetic constitution for foraging, fl ying,
mating, and—I hoped—resisting germs.
Even so, my goal of keeping these birds alive through the winter and
into their second year for breeding was statistically audacious. The longer
a bird is kept, the greater its chances of being overwhelmed by pathogens.
The great majority of modern turkeys can expect an earthly duration of
only four months before meeting their processor. Free- range turkeys may
take as long as six months to reach slaughter size. But any bird that lives
past its first Thanksgiving inhabits a domain occupied by fewer than one-
half of one percent of domestic turkeys. At nine months, my fl ock had
now entered that elite age bracket, among the oldest living turkeys in
America. When I undertook to keep a naturally breeding flock, I hadn’t
thought much about what I was up against.
Nor did I have any clue, now, which possible turkey ailment my poor
droopy hen might have. The drear blackhead roundworm topped my
worry list, since its inventory of symptoms began with “droopy aspect,”
proceeding from there into “aspects” too unpleasant to mention. I imme-
diately removed Miss Droop from the rest of the flock, assuming she’d be
contagious. I’ve had kids in preschool—I know that much. I ushered her
out of the big outdoor pen attached to the poultry house, and escorted her
several hundred yards into an isolation room in the cellar of our big barn.
Yes, it’s the same one where we sequester the death- row roosters; I didn’t
discuss that with her.
In fact, when I shut her in there by herself she immediately perked up,
raising her head and folding her wings onto her back, shaking her fl uffed
feathers neatly back into place, looking around brightly for what she might
find to do next. I hardly trusted this miracle recovery, but an hour later