08/07/2026
So Ducky is my favorite turkey, naturally she was an 'ol Rural King special and turned out to be a Broad Breasted Bronze instead of a heritage breed. At five months old she's weighing somewhere around 35-40 pounds (I weighed her two weeks ago).
Last week I went out to put everyone to bed and she saw me, dramatically laid down, spread her wings across the ground, and looked like she was preparing to leave this earthly realm. I panicked.
I tried to get her to her feet, and she rewarded my concern by flogging the absolute daylights out of me. We're talking bruises, punctures from new feather shafts, the whole nine yards.
I came inside and told Logan I thought it was time to start talking about butchering her because clearly something was wrong and it's probably time. He told me that I was being dramatic because she is still hanging out in the pond, wandering around rooting all day, and can still fly up to roost.
Fine.
The next two nights? Same performance.
Then on night four, it finally clicked.
She isn't sick.
She hasn't lost the plot on life.
She has simply figured out that if she throws herself on the ground like a toddler refusing to leave the cereal aisle, I'll stop trying to herd her to the coop.
Quite frankly, carrying a 40-pound, perfectly round dinosaur down a wet hill in flip-flops every night is getting real old, real fast. At this point, one of us is going to end up in the emergency room, and I have a strong feeling it won't be Ducky.