Our turkeys, all five adults and eight youngsters, literally do spend much of their day as one large group. It usually goes one of two ways, either they can be found peacefully grazing together like this, or… they are noisy, argumentative and causing chaos. They very rarely fall out with each other, instead they may take exception to one of the cockerels or drakes and then shout the equivalent of ‘oy, get off my land’!! Grape, our oldest drake, can give as good as he gets and there has been the odd occasion where Jack has had to separate him and one of the turkeys (usually one of the adult females). The favourite trick is to grab hold of the most vulnerable part of the other bird, usually around the head and neck regions and basically not let go!!! In the meantime, the other turkeys gather round and in true playground style, egg on their companion, loudly and continuously. The hapless cockerel or drake on the other hand is well and truly on his own, all chickens and ducks having retreated to the safety of the stables or hedgerows.
We have had a few more ‘scraps’ than normal recently, possibly due to having so many turkeys still – usually by this time of the year we just have our breeding quintet left. The time of year no doubt plays a part too, as does the fact the birds are not out and about in the paddock as much as normal - due to the wet and the mud!!!
Still, the paddock, being large, does provide plenty of space for the loser of the scrap to escape to and lick their wounds - metaphorical ones, usually the fights result in zero physical injury - and then at night it always amuses us to see turkeys and cockerels side by side on the perches with the ducks happily snoozing underneath.
True playground antics!!