The Turkey that didn't want to go

 

The Turkey that didn’t want to go.

Many years ago, in my youth, I lived and worked on a 2000 acre hunting club in the Sierra Foothills.  Historically, there were no Turkeys in this area.  For wild birds we had Valley Quail,  there was good Dove, duck and goose hunting as well, but no Turkeys.  We planted Bob White Quail, Pheasants and Chuckar for hunting and we had a Flighted Mallard program as well, which was much more difficult than one would think, but that is a story for another time.

 We worked with the Dept of Fish and Game, and were approved to buy and raise Rio Grande Turkeys.  I think we got 200 eggs, to incubate and hatch after all the paperwork was done to satisfy the State.  We had large pens that we held pheasants in, and tons of incubators for the ducks we raised, so we were pretty well set up.

 A good hatch produced what seemed like a million little poults!  They grew fairly quickly in the hatching building and were soon moved out to the pheasant pens.  While they were in those pens, we constructed a large pen out on the property to move them into at the head of a nice valley backed up to some timber and near a spring.

Finally the day came to move them out to the pen.  Several plans were made and lots of help was coordinated.  We had a custom trailer we had built for hauling the ducks around and chose to use that to shuttle the turkeys out to their new pen.  It was only about 4 feet wide and about 15 feet long, so it was going to take several trips. 

We used various methods to create a funnel leading them from the pens to the ramp and into the trailer.  The first couple loads went fairly easily but as the numbers slowly dwindled, the birds became more reluctant to leave their pen and go in the chute to the trailer.  It was a chore to herd them in right direction.  These birds were in the 10- 15 pound range at this point for reference, and some were flying fairly well, but they had never had reason to fly more than a few feet.

One young jake, decided he was not going in that contraption, and wanted back to his pen.  The only thing blocking his escape was me.  Much to my surprise, me waving my arms and yelling at him was not a deterrent in any shape or form.  He hit me square in the chest at full flight and knocked me flat on my butt!

He was finally corralled and forced into the trailer and moved to his new pen in the hills, but I will never forget what a 10 pound ball of angry feathers feels like!

We took down the pen once the birds were settled and all big enough to survive on their own and there is now a huge population of turkeys all over the county there now even tho the club is long gone.