The Welcoming Committee

This unlikely foursome is quickly becoming the welcoming committee of the farm.

Last summer, a friend and I traded some baby birds and I ended up with some odds and ends in a brooder together, namely these 2 turkeys (a Royal Palm Tom and a Spanish Black hen for you bird geeks like me) and these 2 guinea fowl hens. I penned them for convenience and efficiency and assumed that was freed from each other, they’d go their separate ways and join their appropriate flocks...oh how wrong I was.

Nope, these four are inseparable and beyond that, are so weird that they are completely ostracized from the respective turkey and guinea populations of the farm. Each species has adopted just enough traits of the other that nobody else knows how to talk to them and so they stick together like the little gang of misfits they are.

The turkey hen tries to “buck-wheat” cry with the guinea girls and all four alarm loudly ala guinea fowl-style (which is crazy loud coming from a turkey throat). The Tom turkey thinks all 3 ladies are oh so sexy and struts at them constantly. And the guinea hens have become ultra human social like turkeys do and that means every time I go to do anything, I have this gaggle of loud, awkward idiots following me around. It’s like having the world’s worst marching band announcing my presence everywhere I go on the farm—Gobble, gobble, buck-wheat, screeeeaaaam...everywhere, ALL. THE. TIME.

And when a visitor arrives, I can only hope they have earplugs. The bedlam increases tenfold as the the guinea part of everyone’s brain pushes them into high octave alarm and the turkey part gets them revved up in anticipation of treats (they totally steal the UPS guy’s biscuits he throws for the dogs) and everyone generally loses their damn mind. I have hidden inside the house while the FedEx man leaves a box because I know he doesn’t bring treats and I know if I am the next thing they see, I will be mobbed. The fear is real folks...