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«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§« Lois Caywood Guffy«:*´`³¤³´`*:»
My two cousins and an aunt each had a Turkey ranch here in Northern OK. Some years their turkeys were all bronze and some years they had all white. Then sometimes they had both breeds.
The coyotes caught more of the whites than the bronze, so they mainly had bronze. Any white fowl is seen easier at night when coyotes do most of their hunting. They got they share each year. Turkeys take a lot of care because they are hatched to "DIE" !!
My cousins would buy truck loads of clean sand and gravel each spring when they got their hatched turkeys. Everything was as sterile as most houses. My mother and a bunch of neighbors were hired to help set up the turkey brooder houses for them, as well as when they clipped the wings to prevent them from flying out of their fenced area.. We always got the crooked breasted ones for free. They were as good as any, but deformed breasts.
The turkeys were bred "up" for more white meat and many were just like a big boobed woman who has problems with posture. (The devil made me say that )
The healthy turkeys would literally flog the unhealthy to death. Natures way of eliminating the ones with bad genes. My cousins would sleep in the brooders when the baby turkeys first arrived. I have helped feed them way back when it was done by hand. They made a lot of money some years and upsized the operation to mechanical feeders and other easier ways to care for them.
I have seen the disaster that strikes when a hail or big rainstorm came and killed hundreds. They would not move out of harms way and had to be herded back to the barns.
Not a pretty sight and the profits went down the drain. I learned to appreciate turkeys more from what I saw at the turkey farm.
Lois Guffy 4-25-1999