Friday November 25, 2016
For those of you recovering from Thanksgiving, on this Flashback Friday we wanted to revisit our short-lived stint raising turkeys at FISHBIO Farms. Enjoy!
We are now into the second season of our FISHBIO Farms experiment (as scientists, pretty much everything we do is an experiment!), and this spring has hatched a new project. The vegetable garden is producing well and the chickens are laying more than a dozen eggs per day—but our newest additions are about 18 turkey chicks. Last year we purchased about a half-dozen Eastern Wild Turkey poults with the intent of fattening them up for Thanksgiving dinners. But when November rolled around, they didn’t seem quite large enough to slaughter. After being fed through the winter, the hens started laying eggs this spring. Lo and behold, four weeks later we had chicks breaking out of their shells!
In a matter of days, more than a dozen chicks were scurrying around inside our turkey coop. Our staff have been making more frequent visits outside to the garden area for a peek at the expanding flock—and who can blame them? The chicks are extremely entertaining. Turkeys are social creatures that go into a panic when they realize they’ve wandered too far from their siblings. Turkeys are great at scavenging insects in the yard, and it’s hilarious watching the little chicks chasing flies. But as fun as they are to watch, we will certainly have our hands full with so many turkeys…
