Rural Gardening: World's most expensive turkeys update, 0 by jylgaskin

jylgaskin wrote:
Some of you will remember my search for Narragansett turkeys which brought me to Dave's Garden. For thoes who don't know,( or are old and forget like I do) we drove all the way down to Jackson Mi from Traverse City Mi (Only a couple hundred miles) to get these birds. Counting the 6 bucks each we paid for them, the price of gas, the flat tire and the speeding ticket my husband got, we figure the little buzzards cost us about 50 bucks a piece.

They started their lives in my studio, then moved to the fawn pen where they slept every night with the little buck I am rehabbing. The fawn now sleeps outside and so do the turkeys. Their chosen perch is over my backyard gate. They sit up there all night, about 7 feet off the ground. (I had no clue turkeys could poop so much in their SLEEP!)

During the day, they hang out with our misceleanious duck families, chase bugs and harrass the peacock. If I am outside working, they follow me around and offer advice on whatever I am doing. They have taken over picking up the dead bees outside the hives every evening. I love the vocalizations. They chatter to each other and to me all day long. At night it's almost like a slumber party as they chat themselves to sleep. Even though we have seen no strutting (I think they are intimidated by the peacock and his struts) it is now obvious that we have one tom and three hens. This fall we will pick the best of the hens to keep with the tom. (It WON'T be the stupid one who gets on the wrong side of the fence and peeps for me to come get her)

I am realy impressed with the Narragansett breed. They grow much slower than the bronze breasted (who have already outgrown my roaster in 2 months) and are content to just hang about the yard. I would say that the tom probably weighs about 7 pounds.