TURKEYS!

OK, I'll spill the beans. The little birds we got a few weeks ago are TURKEYS!

In the video you can see one of the males, doing the turkey mating dance and he is only a month or so old. They are the cutest things. WE LOVE THE TURKEYS!!! They are much smarter than the chickens and MUCH quieter than the guineas (who are making the God awful sound on the video). They make a soft cooing noise and we actually heard one gobble the other day when it was frightened. Right now they remind me of miniature ostriches. I can just sit out there for hours and watch them. So can Jon. I would never have imagined just a short year ago (yes today is our year anniversary of living in Davis!) that I would be sitting in front of our baby chicken pen falling in love with turkeys.

But these aren't just any turkeys. Like the American Guinea Hog and Dominique Chickens (of which we have only 2 left), this breed of turkey is an endangered one. They are called Narragansett Turkeys. This breed is most likely descended from the wild turkeys eaten at the first Thanksgiving. They are a cross (like the Guinea Hogs) between wild and domestic at least way back down the line. We will be having some of these turkeys for dinner. One male and all the females will be retained for breeding stock to make more Thanksgiving dinners and help the numbers of endangered American Breeds.

To learn more about endangered breeds please visit http://www.albc-usa.org/ .