Not Like A Chicken

The first thing we had to do upon getting home was set up a brooder for Doodle. S/he'd need bedding, a secure space, a heat lamp (with adequate room to move out of the heat if it got too hot), food, and water. A quick internet search told us that baby turkeys are extremely susceptible to chill and that the "warm side" of the brooder needed to be no less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That seemed a bit excessive to us at the time, as our baby chickens at their warmest had only ever required a 95 degree environment. But, it turns out that a turkey's normal body heat is 106.7, so 100 degrees is cool when you compare with what they experience nestled under Mama!

Doodle at about a week old, standing by a shallow water dish.
(...Okay, fine, it's a punch cup! I told ya, we're not experts!)

The second not-like-a-chick traits of a turkey that we encountered was food and water. Firstly, turkeys need a lot more protein than chickens, especially when starting out. We were recommended to feed Doodle a wild game starter with a 30.0% protein content (and that's to compare with the 18.0% protein content of chick starters). Trouble was, our local feed store provides no such stuff. Instead, we mixed half chick starter with the wild game starter that our store did provide, which capped off at 20.0% protein. We sprinkle in some chick grit (which is ground up granite) into the food about once a week or so.

But there was a second problem. Turkeys, it turns out, earn their reputation for being "stupid" because of an almost total lack of survival instincts. They're like children, or puppies: they have to be taught everything. So, while you could put a newborn chick into a brooder and it'd make a beeline for the food and water as needed, a baby turkey has to be shown where to find it and how to eat/drink it. Again and again and again. To Doodle's credit, s/he picked it up relatively fast. But Doodle does not like pellets of any size. Doodle's food must be mashed to powder before s/he'll eat it, and s/he was quite offended to find grit there from time to time. But that's another story.

Another difference we discovered between our own Doodle and the chickens we raised in the past is just how NEEDY a turkey is. Chicks are very independent, almost from the time that they're hatched. Our little Doodle, on the other hand, could not be left alone for two seconds. If we left the room, the lost call would begin. If we were gone longer than two minutes, "lost" would escalate to "panic".

So, we learned that Doodle must never be left alone. 'Round the clock, 24/7, from that day on, Doodle had a "babysitter". Doodle would sleep in about 10 minute shifts, even through the night. At the close of those 10 minutes, Doodle would stir and make a soft lost call, to which one must respond by saying "It's okay Doodle, I'm still here", or Doodle would wake up and start pacing and lost-crying until we made eye contact and petted him/her. We came to refer to these checks as Doodle's way of telling us that s/he was still alive, and wanted to know if we still were.

Doodle's bottom got a bit pasty from the stress of moving from the feed store to the brooder, and being left alone a couple of times before we were the wiser (or more desperate to keep Doodle happy, choose your pick). This panicked us at first, because the first pasty dropping had some red in it, and we feared it was a sure sign of coccidiosis. Turns out the red wasn't blood though, it was just normal intestinal sloughing, which happens occasionally. For fear of getting him/her chilled, we didn't wash the pasty poo off, but kept a close eye to be sure it never sealed up Doodle's vent. We would wipe it with tissue paper from time to time. The pastiness only lasted the first three days, and by day four Doodle was having normal poo.

I read somewhere that a happy baby turkey is a quiet baby turkey... Doodle proved to us this is not the case, at least as far as Doodle is concerned. Because Doodle talks. A LOT. When Doodle is happy, eating, or preening, Doodle chirps and sings like a little fairytale songbird. Seriously, the noise brings on the same sense that the singer is experiencing la-la-la-all-is-right-in-my-cotton-candy-world that watching that clip from Snow White does. When Doodle is uncomfortable or feeling feisty, Doodle makes this breathy alarmed peeph-peeph-peeph noise. It seems to mean "Don't do that", whether "that" is petting him/her on the back or "that" is the fact that Doodle wants to balance on a narrow ledge and Doodle's gawky legs aren't cooperating.

"Stop that, legs, stop that."