This is Lady Sky, who is also know as Turkey Lurkey and The White Reaper.
She is a Broad Breasted White Turkey and currently weights 22 lbs.
On 3-13-14, we bought her at the Ace Hardware store for a companion for Sir William. At the store, the other poults were pecking her snood and once it started bleeding, they would not stop. That is how I picked her out of twenty or so adorable, little fuzzy chicks.
After we brought her home, she lived in a box with Sir William, Mary Ann the Amberlink and Ginger the Golden Comet.
They were around a week older then Sky, but got along fine.
They quickly grew and were moved from the box to an outside pen.
Once they were big enough that they were safe from red-shouldered hawks, they were free to roam the yard during the day.
Sky and Will were never far apart.
They snuggled together, roamed the yard together and talked to each other.
Will was beginning to strut and had not yet learned to gobble, when a mysterious sickness overtook him.
The next day, on 6-13-14, he died.
After Sir William's sudden and tragic death, she spent most of her time with her chicken sister, Mary Ann and Ginger.
Some people are afraid of her, but she is a gentle giant.
She loves to sit on my lap or beside me while being petted, sometimes falling asleep.
She is very talkative and makes many different sounds, including clucks, chirps and coos.
She also screams when she sees food that she really wants and sometimes wines like a dog when she wants out.
She dislikes anyone who does not give her the respect that she deserves, including Commando.
When she gets angry, she puffs up her feathers and her head turns white or red.
Her best friend is Squash, a one-eyed rooster who, after surviving an owl attack, was bullied by the other chickens.
One of her eyes is half light blue and half brown.
Sky fallows us around the yard, comes inside the house every chance that she gets, and tries to help with everything.
She is a very funny bird.
When we dig new potatoes, she sits down in the hole and takes a dirt bath.
I tought her to pick up rags that fall when we are hanging clothes on the line to dry.
If she does not get her treat quick enough, she shakes the rag like crazy.
When my dad is mowing, she will run right in front of the moving lawnmower to catch a bug, with no apparent regusrd for her own safety.
She does not like roosting beside black hens for some strange reason.
She loves food and tries to eat almost anything she sees, and will trample anyone who gets in her way.
She gets grumpy when she has to stay in the chicken pen and starts picking on the top-ranking chickens.
Although turkeys make great friends and companion animals, most people don't keep them for that reason.
If some other person had of bought her, she would most likely have been killed to be eaten.
It is very sickening and heartbreaking to know that more than 45 million turkeys are killed each year at Thanksgiving and more than 22 million die at Christmas, each one just as speicle as Sky.
The only reason being to taste their decomposing flesh.
If every person knew turkeys as well as we know Sky, then they would look upon eating them with as much discuss as most currently do eating cats and dogs.
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here for more pictures of her.
