Hello everyone!
You’d never guess……I’ve seen (and held) brand new turkey babies!!! You just can’t imagine how some of the most ungainly looking birds can produce such adorabilly chickies like these.
I have been waiting and waiting with a degree of anxiety for these babies. The farmer told us a few weeks ago that they were coming, and apart from my general interest in all things birds, and my particular interest in baby anything, and my especial desire to see baby turkeys (it’s a first for me), my camera is due to go interstate for servicing after it’s rough treatment at the beach recently. It will be away for perhaps six weeks, and I so didn’t want to miss the turkey babies..and here they are!
Aren’t they darling? I honestly thought they would be, at the very least, bald or gangly: but they are the softest, sweetest, and not a tiny bit scared of you, little treasures.
We all were allowed to hold one, and they were perfectly content to sit. They will spend the next three weeks in the farmer’s kitchen under a warm light, as turkey mothers are not the most efficient at raising their babies.
After keeping the farmers from their work while we each had a turn of adoring the chicks, we then went to see some lambs that were born last night, and check how much the others had grown.
With the light fast fading, we visited “Miss Piggy”, who has this week had piglets. She was keeping her babies close by her, inside her shed, but her contemporary (whose name I don’t know – perhaps a more moral “Mrs Piggy”?) was feeding her collection of youngsters.
It is a very fine thing to have farming friends who are willing to share with you!
June 26, 2009 at 11:54 pm
[...] I’m smitten! Posted by Beyond Bluestockings Filed in farm ·Tags: animals, babies, baby, birds, chick, country, farm, nature, photo, photography, photos, picture, pictures, poult, turkey Leave a Comment » [...]
June 27, 2009 at 12:57 am
Too cute Mrs BB, too cute. I also love the pig’s face looking at you as you are taking photos. Strangely enough, it looks exactly like my Darcy does when I am making a cup of hot milo at night. The kinda look that is hopeful for a little bowl of milk, lol.
The turkey chicks are very cute and cuddly looking! What a surprise! And little lambie looks like he has been playing in the mud, lol.
June 27, 2009 at 7:58 am
Oooh! My lovely friend, I can assure you that your Darcy has kinder and more hopeful feelings toward you when he wears that look, than does Mrs Piggy. Mrs Piggy fairly charged up in affront that I would use the flash on my camera while she was feeding her babies.
I bet Darcy just hopefully gives a little thump, thump of his tail and tries to win you with his wistful look
June 27, 2009 at 9:26 am
They are the cutest things…so how many times a day do you get, “Can we have some Mum, PLEEEEAAAASSSSEEE????”
June 27, 2009 at 10:31 am
Ooh, aren’t the turkey chicks beautiful? They look a little like ducklings. I wonder, did the farmer hatch them in an incubator, or did the turkey hens hatch them?
We have turkeys, but so far haven’t had any turkey chicks.
Blessings,
Jillian
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June 27, 2009 at 11:58 am
At first glance I wouldn’t pick them to be baby Turkey at all . Gee I like the developing trend of cute baby animals pics .
June 27, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Christine, the funny part? It was not my children who were asking that, but on the way home I told my mother that;
…I wished the farmer would let me take one home and bring it back when it was big.
and
…Do you think if I bought one from him, then he wouldn’t mind letting me have it until it’s big?
and
…Do you think if I had just one turkey baby it would be too lonely?
Sigh. Then I drove home to our house, where the closest thing we have to a pet are the caterpillars we are watching in jars.
Jillian, the farmer said the turkey hen hatched the chicks herself, but he takes them to raise because she won’t look after them, especially during this cold weather, and because they will lose them to hawks and crows if they are outside.
Luke, I have been helpless before the onslaught of cute that has come my way through the farm. Though, the turkeys were the last baby things that the farmer is expecting for a while.
I hope to take pictures of the actual farmer yet, because his face is one of the kind that just bears a lot of scrutiny. You know how some faces look so they just must have a story? His is such a one. He also has the twinkliest eyes I’ve seen outside of a book description! I’ll post one if I can catch him long enough from his work.
June 27, 2009 at 6:01 pm
This it the commentary at Michael Jackson’s video “They Don’t Care About Us”:
It’s an interesting video, but the message I get from it is centered
around his “I’m a victim of police brutality.” Michael Jackson was
no victim of anyone but himself and his inability to admit that he
was one messed up individual. It’s a shocker that he died in this
fashion at this point in his life but I am certain that the families
of some small children are not entirely unhappy to see him gone.
He had a talent for music but his actions around small boys were
certainly questionable. Which makes the content and message in the
video also questionable.]
And this is my reply:
Certainly, you’re right. It’s sad to criticize a dead man
(“de mortuis nil nisi bene” or “de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est”
- “No one can speak ill of the dead” – but also it’s an error
not to say the truth. I deliberate made this choice to point the sarcasm
between his incontestable musical endowment (not genius, he wasn’t “The King”
as it’s said, he wasn’t John Lennon) and his way of life.
A literary critic said that those who loved Percy Bysshe Shelley must bemoan his
death at 30 and those who loved George Gordon Byron must rejoice that he quit
at 36 because he would become a reactionary if he would live more.
I don’t agreed, but I’d say it’s sad that Lennon passed at 40 and it’s dismal
that Jackson lingered on beyond 25.
June 27, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Awww! I love baby animals, they are adorable, especially the turkeys! I agree with Luke, I wouldn’t have guessed what kind of bird they were either!
June 27, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Dan, Dan, Dan. I am sorry to edit your post, but you remember that I have four sweet, little readers here, and it is a family friendly site.
I agree with you regarding the idea that it is better to tell the truth: I see no moral in protecting the reputation in death, of one who cared not to protect it in life.
Holly, I was surprised to the soles of my (borrowed) gumboots. They really were not what I was expecting to find.
June 27, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Mrs BB, is the farm owned by a friend of the family so to speak, or just a very kindly farmer that allows you to bring your little petals there?
Whatever the case, what a blessing he is!
June 27, 2009 at 9:51 pm
ps. am I missing something with regards to the Michael Jackson youtube clip and comments etc? It’s not making sense (sorry!)…
June 28, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Amanda: both! lol! You would have to know my mother, to know that anyone she knows comes under the category of “friend of the family”! I have no idea how she met the farmers, but the steady stream of home baked goodies that flows to them may have paved the way for her to first ask if we could go along and watch them milking the cows.
But seriously, they are also very kind people; very patient and giving of their time to us. We have seen and learned so many things because of their generosity.
With regards the youtube, I met Dan through my Urban Daisy site, and he may be too shy to talk turkeys with me, and has offered a little social commentary on recent happenings, instead.
June 28, 2009 at 7:02 pm
LOL, thanks for the explanation… I just thought there might have been a whole post that I have missed ~ because it was kinda left field.
ahem, ok back to turkey talk
June 28, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Some lovely specimens at Old McDonald’s Farm (no disrespect intended :0)
I’m fascinated by the cuteness of the Turkey chicks too. The gobblers are definately one of the less cute bird varieties.
June 29, 2009 at 7:54 am
Ruby, it is just the “Old McDonald-ness” of this farm that I love. The only thing they appear to lack are horses and cats, but we have those at Grandma’s, so we can still get by