Earlier this week, Lily’s Place took in eight young turkeys after a situation changed unexpectedly and required a quick decision.

Someone who breeds heritage turkeys never intended for baby turkeys to be hatching this time of year. The baby turkeys were kept indoors initially and later posted online. A compassion group stepped in to ensure the babies didn’t fall into the wrong hands and arranged temporary foster care while longer-term plans were made.

A couple of the older turkeys found homes, and we committed to taking in the remaining female turkeys once they were old enough to be sexed reliably.

That wouldn’t be for a while, which worked well for us as we planned to build permanent housing for turkeys in the spring. We had committed to the female turkeys from this flock because we could accommodate a few females over the winter without too much logistical juggling should their foster situation change quickly.

On Thursday, the night before Annie and Sid travelled to PEI, we were contacted about taking the turkeys early. The plan was to keep the turkeys in foster care (in PEI) for a while longer, as they were hanging out inside, warm and safe.

Since it was the night before Annie and Sid travelled to AVC, we were focused on Annie and didn’t know what her outcome would be. Would we be taking her home? Would only Sid be coming home if the diagnostics revealed something catastrophic? Would Annie and Sid be staying at the hospital for a while? All that was up in the air, our nerves were shot, and we needed to focus on one thing at a time.

On Friday, after safely travelling to PEI, completing Annie’s diagnostics, and a plan coming together for Annie to have surgery in a few days, it was time to head home. Since Tim would be coming home with an empty trailer, he reached out to the foster person to touch base.

They had straw to donate, so Tim would swing by to pick it up on his way home. There was no plan to pick up any turkeys until we learned they had been moved into a shed earlier that day.

Tim took a detour to check on them, expecting to pick up straw and possibly three Turkeys that the foster person believed to be female. When Tim arrived, the foster person needed to step out, so they weren’t available to point out which birds they believed were female.

Tim and I got on a video call to assess the situation together. It quickly became clear that at least half of the turkeys were still too young to sex with certainty.

A neighbour came over and shared concerns about predator activity in the area; they had lost all their chickens to a fox a few nights before, and the door of the shed where the turkeys were kept didn’t seem secure enough to keep them safe overnight.

From there, we knew that guessing which turkeys to take back to the sanctuary while leaving others in an unsafe situation wasn’t something we felt comfortable with.

We had also noticed that one turkey, whom we named Roo, needed medical attention.

After checking with the organization that placed the turkeys in foster care and getting the go-ahead to bring all eight back to the sanctuary, Tim settled the turkeys into the enclosed trailer and headed back to NB.

After a long drive, Tim and the flock of turkeys arrived at the sanctuary just past 11 pm. The turkeys got settled in for the night, including pain meds for the injured turkey.

More to come on the turkeys soon, including Roo.