Too Many Toms!

Pretty boys, they are pretty.  But their attitudes today were not pretty, not even gracious.  The tom turkeys were grabbing each other's snoods (the dangly thing in front of their beak/eyes) and pinching, and wrestling each other with their necks, and biting and flogging.  Of course, I stepped in between them and counselled them to be nice and to play fair, and just like kids they were reaching back and forth around me pinching each other.  I finally separated them into different pens -- BIG pens  -- and they would run to the fence as fast as they could and pick at each other through it!  I hate to say it, but one of them might have to be someone's Thanksgiving dinner if they don't stop. 

It was a fine day otherwise, cold and fresh with a fall snap to the air.  The leaves crunch crisply underfoot.  Tomorrow looks like baling day for the hay, so I will go to fix a harvest meal for the workers.  They will be ready for something warm to eat by the time they are through.  Pasta with meat and tomatoes and buttered bread.  We call it goulash, here.

In order to understand how funny it was, I have to explain that the upper and lower pastures are divided by a shed that once was a chicken coop.  It has a people door in the upper pasture side, and a pop door (little square door for chickens) on the lower pasture side.  Sometimes, FinnAgain, my Boer wether who was born last spring, (Lower right in the photo) slides through the pop door.  When he was younger, it was easy.  But now that he's older, it's quite a feat.  Normally I keep him in the upper pasture while the buck is here, as the buck tends to pick on him, and if the buck does, several of the large does do, too.  But today he decided to slide through the pop door into the lower pasture.  I had barely noticed that he was down there when there was a commotion at the chicken shed.  When I went to look, the buck had his head under Finney, and was trying to push him back through the pop door!  Finn got the message, I guess, because he did go back through.  It was funny because instead of banging on Finn, the Duke was actually lifting him with his head toward the hole he had popped out of.  Anyway, that was my chuckle for the day.  Each of the very pregnant Nigerian Dwarf girls has made one trip through the pop door hole, and that was enough to satisfy their curiosity.  I was not there to see them do that, but I imagine it would have been quite a remarkable sight.

So... Does anyone need a pet Red Bourbon tom turkey?  Timmy is looking for a home, before he gets sent off to freezer camp.

Hope your day was fine.