One of my daily tasks is to clean the Turkey Barn, also known as the "Turkey Lady and Special Needs Chicken Barn". Here the older turkey ladies live with a group of chickens in a peaceful arrangement. The best part of this particular assignment, for me at least, is the time that this allows me to spend with Olive, one of the turkey ladies.
Olive has little reason to trust or to even tolerate humans. Almost as soon as she was born, she was subjected to the brutal practice called de-beaking , in which a large portion of her beak was seared off. Why was this done you may ask? Well, if turkeys are crammed together in factory farms, the stress will lead them to peck at each other so rather than do anything to alleviate the stress, the powers that be have adopted this cruel practice. Try to imagine yourself and your four best friends living in a Mini Cooper for six months with the doors welded shut...I suspect that you wouldn't exactly get along either. Fortunately, for you, this is not a common fate and no one would think it was acceptable to remove your hands, feet, and teeth to keep you from hurting your fellow passengers. That would be inhumane!
Back to Olive, aside from this indignity, even before she was born, her suffering at the hands of man had begun. Since humans collectively see turkeys as nothing more than food supplies, they have been engineered through selective breeding to be much bigger than they should be. In our selfishness, we have created whole species variants of animals whose weight far exceeds the capacity of their legs. This is the case with Olive as well and her diet has to be carefully controlled in order to prevent her from succumbing to arthritis and other crippling afflictions. Like all of the turkey ladies, she is a little slow and has a slight limp to her gait. This is medically treated, so her pain is managed, but what a sad testament to humanity's inhumanity.
Despite what has been done to her, Olive holds no grudges. When I am working around her, she likes to follow me and loves attention. If she is in the yard and I call her name, she will slowly make her way over to me and then plop down in front of me. In my pre-Sanctuary days, I can't say that I knew the value of a "turkey-hug", but I sure do now. This is just one of the affirming moments that make me so glad that I made the life changing move to come work here.
Now, let me introduce my turkey girl, Olive.
