Turkeys for Ticks

Next to guinea fowl, turkeys are the best for keeping your property tick free and also like guinea fowl, they will let you know if a stranger enters your property.

Both males (toms) and females (hens) forage constantly from dusk to dawn

except in the Spring, when toms display daylong.

A young turkey is called a poult and a group of turkeys is known as a rafter. This is a relatively small rafter,

as a hen can have as many as 18 eggs in a clutch. This hen hatched 14 poults.

Turkeys tend to forage primarily with their beaks and do not have the destructive scratching habit of chickens, so they are allowed free access to the gardens.

The long piece of skin that hangs over the toms beak is called a snood and is extended when he displays.

Every evening the chickens return to the hen coop, whereas the turkeys prefer to roost outdoors.

On the rose and clematis arbor.

Under the grape arbor,

or high up in the trees, here silhouetted by the moon.