Chapter 12

JENNY-O

Jenny owns a place in my memoirs of the fowl group of our pets.

We didn’t keep the geese long. I thought they would make nice pets, and found out that birds usually only make good pets if you get one, and pay that one a lot of attention, like having a parakeet or a parrot. It isn‘t fair to the bird, though, as in that case, they aren‘t free to be the bird Nature meant it to be. The geese had each other, and were like watch dogs that didn‘t want anything or anyone approaching, and if you did, you risked being goosed in the rear end or anywhere, and it hurt. Whereas there are weeder geese who will help you with your garden, ours wanted to eat any green juicy shoot from whatever we were trying to grow. Every other dropping had to quality of permanent India ink, and if you tracked it in on the rug, forget ever getting that spot out of the carpet. We ended up selling them at the Nicholson farm auction for less than each cost at Agway when purchased as goslings.

Of the 6 turkeys, one of them thought he was a duck, and would spend his days on the edge of the pond peeping for his webbed footed friends to join him on the shore. That made a good story for my grandchildren, and in the story, I envisioned finding a tiny inner tube for him to sit in so he could join the ducks.

The male white turkey, Junior, and the Bronze breasted turkeys and were raised for their meat. I thought Junior was a goner when a dog had attacked him and pulled a large piece of skin from his underbelly… feathers and all. I was to learn about their ability to regenerate serious skin wounds, as after keeping him separate from the other fowl until he was feeling better, as when a bird is wounded, we found that their nature is to peck on the wounded bird. I suppose this was to keep strength in the flock. Nature doesn‘t pussy-foot around. After a good scab formed over the spot, he joined the rest, and within a month or so you wouldn‘t know that he was ever harmed.

We kept the Dutch white hen turkey we named Jenny-O, who ironically was named after a brand name of processed turkey meat. She had earned a place in my heart. She was the funniest turkey I ever had. I’d be sitting in the lawn swing, and feel something tugging at my blouse or hair, and turn to see Jenny-O. She’d let me pick her up, and then she’d do a little settling thing like my lap was a nest and she was making it comfortable. If I was sitting out on the lawn, she would come up to me and reach one of her feet up to my leg as if to see if it was feasible to climb on my lap. I’d help her and she’d sit there in the sun with me like a cozy cat on my lap, rather than a dumb Thanksgiving Turkey.

Maybe it was because she was female, but Jenny seemed able to survive and never got overweight. I had heard that hen turkey’s make wonderful mothers, and would have loved to have Jenny mate and raise some poults, as she had such a pleasant nature. Turkey farms artificially inseminate the female turkey, and forget about that.

So Tom bought me two adult Royal turkeys for my birthday one year. They which were a lighter bird and would have no trouble reproducing. The first day we had them the two went too close to the road, and the female got hit by a car. That was a problem with turkeys free ranging, they seemed to like the paved road in front. It didn’t take me long to figure out that we were going to let Jenny see if she could hatch an egg.

The only problem with that, once she laid fertilized eggs, was she going to be too heavy brood them. We did what fertility clinics do, and collected enough eggs so that perhaps a few would get through the long brood [28 days]. We tried to keep the nest soft and deep. Jenny pulled off her down to line her nest, and would try to avoid stepping on the eggs as she nestled down on the eggs. They have to cool the eggs once in awhile, and turn them daily, and in the process would ruin an egg now and then. One at a time she’d roll out an egg. We’d check it, and see a hairline crack… if not obviously crushed. She had started with about 8 eggs, and by day 27 there was just two left. We listened and one was still viable. We left them both, hoping the one that wasn't tapping from the inside was just late. Next time we went out to the garage where we had her nesting box, the next to the last egg was rolled out on the floor. It would be a pity after all that brooding if none hatched. I kept checking.

It was amazing to me that, here was a mass produced plain white turkey from a long line of mass produced turkeys, whose genetic background still sprung up to the forefront when it came to her mating and hatching her own eggs. To me this was so miraculous. Those people who discount turkeys as being so stupid they’d drown if they looked up in a rainstorm hadn‘t met my Jenny-O.

Soon the chick in the one remaining egg was working its egg tooth at cracking open the egg, but the shell had dried out and was sticking to the chick’s back. Feeling like a mid-wife, I got a warm wet washcloth and soaked the egg shell to remove the parts that were sticking to the chick, staying with Jenny practically holding my breath while her only poult successfully hatched. I was overjoyed. I didn’t want to leave. I was so worried about this tiny chick surviving our HUGE Jenny-O sitting on it keeping it warm (think a little cab compared to a huge apartment building).
Jenny was very motherly and would tuck the little chick under her and then sit. I had to check and make sure the chick wasn’t being sat upon, but Jenny had been very careful. I finally let nature take it’s course and left the maternity ward to eat a missed meal and have some coffee. I felt more like breaking out the champagne. But I didn’t want to jinx things… we didn’t want to get too excited.

Next time I went out to check on the chick, it was nowhere to be seen. I began to panic. I made Jenny stand up, and searched to see if it’s life was flattened out into the nest. It was nowhere. How the hell could it just disappear? I thought to feel inside Jenny‘s downy feathering between her body and her wings, reaching up into her rich warm feathers and then felt two wiry legs. The chick would climb up into Jenny’s downy feathers under her wings like an apartment dweller in a four story walk up.

The first few days the poult hardly left his “apartment.” The second day he explored the nesting box. …Then the area right in front where we kept some starter feed, ...and finally his mom took him for a walk around the garage. At about 5 days old Jenny took him out on the lawn to show his handsome strutting Royal gobbler dad. Jenny kept herself between the tom, Dano, and the chick. He looked like any proud dad. It was a short outing the first day. Soon Jasper, as we called the poult, was out with Jenny looking for insects in the grass. Dano would join them for a family outing. When Jasper got tired, he’d simply jump on his mama’s back and take a ride.

What I had heard was true. Hen turkey’s make wonderful mothers. I really loved that Jenny, and would agree that she was an okay Turkey to over-winter, but she ended up very lonely after Jasper grew up, as we sold Dano and his son, and some more cross breed poults we raised using a broody Aracauna hen, as the ‘mother.‘ Reason being that the lighter turkeys could fly and chose Tom’s truck as a landing area, scratching the hood.

Jenny couldn’t fly, but she was enamored to trucks and cars, and almost got run over a few times when she wriggled down in mating position awaiting the car to mate with her. Her tail actually got trapped underneath the front tire of a car when someone dropped in to visit. We had to have him back up to free Jenny-O who was otherwise unscathed.

One day when I came home from Montrose, I was to find the Silver Lake Police Chief parked next to the driveway. I asked him what was going on, as he was walking down the driveway, and I saw Jenny-O sitting further up the driveway. He said, “I was driving by and saw your turkey just sitting by the road, and got out to see if she was okay. I couldn’t see any harm, and carried her up the driveway. She’s just sitting there and won’t move.” I went up to inspect her. She was fine, but was in a swoon… the way she gets after something’s tried mating with her… or so she thinks. Cars make her swoon, so I told him how cars put her in a swoon.

Jenny lasted another winter, and then chose to nest in March when there was still snow on the ground in an old unused dog house. It was just easier to let her try to hatch her unfertile eggs than to carry her over to the coop to safely shut her in for the night, as she wouldn’t go on her own. We hadn’t realized that raccoons would already be out on the prowl, and sadly, on a snowy morning in that March, we found Jenny's mutilated body in the snow near the back steps. I felt badly about not having protected her. Though I don't grieve over fowl like I do over other types of pets that die, I felt sorry about having lost her and I'll always miss her. There will never be another Jenny. She was unique, and we shouldn’t have tried years later to over winter a big Bronze Breasted turkey who was almost paralyzed by his weight alone. Jenny stands out as my favorite memory of all the fowl we’ve raised… thus far.