Less than an hour ago I was attacked by one of my commercial (BBW) hens. It's been a confusing 36 hours. Yesterday morning one of my toms got a beak erection and tried to fight the other tom. This went on for a bit until I stepped in and sent everyone to their respective corners. An hour later, Snoodles decided it would be wise to try to mate with one of the commercial hens, regardless of the fact that she's more than 3 times his weight. I found this out when I heard a pathetic crying and when out to find the hen holding him down with her neck and later holding his head in her beak. I saved him and he eventually decided it would be best to wait a bit before trying sexy time again. Two days ago there was zero turkey testosterone. Yesterday it ramped up and today it peaked with my Royal Palm hen identifying as a male. Sum Bitch.
So, now I've got 3 Royal Palm toms and 5 BBW hens, which kinda sucks because a month ago I had 5 BBWs, a RP tom and two RP hens. Turns out I'm not great at sexing turkeys.
This evening I was out in the field, drawing the turks out. They were doing great eating alfalfa and red clover. I was squatting down, sucking on some clover flower and offering the girls some clover when something almost exactly like this happened:
except is was my right nut. One of my lovely girls decided to taste test my scrotum while I was wearing cotton pants. Until tonight I always felt bad that they'd had their beaks clipped but, seeing the broken skin on either side of the beak and at the tip, I'm quite glad the damage was mitigated.
Immediately after the foul I stood up and staggered off, so I don't know which of my girls was responsible. I think I'm going to look for a jock just to make sure I've got my bases covered.
Let's be careful out there...
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