I’ve learned how to talk turkey. Not kidding. It all started when a friend recommended that I watch the film My Life as a Turkey, upon seeing a photo of our new turkeys that I posted on my Facebook page. She must have presumed, while perched in her high-rise apartment in midtown Manhattan, that our turkeys were pets and would be with us for the long run.

Now, I do not recommend this film if you are planning to rear and butcher turkeys of any sort anytime soon. But, if you want to learn how to talk turkey, you can find My Life as a Turkey online with a simple search of the film’s title.

The documentary follows one man’s experience raising wild turkeys from egg to adulthood. Along the way, he essentially becomes a mother to them, coddling and even roosting with them at night until they fall asleep. He learns their language and body language, which was about the only thing I could take away from it after becoming riddled with the guilt of raising these curious and kind animals for food.

Much as I’d like to try and write out a short glossary of turkey talk here, I’m afraid it wouldn’t come across the same way as it does in the movie, so if you are truly interested, do have a look. However, I will say this – purring softly like a kitten can ironically be quite soothing to a turkey’s ears.

So yes, we have arrived at week four of our turkey rearing adventure and boy have I learned a lot about these fine-feathered creatures in this short period of time.

Very sadly, we are down to 10 turkeys from the original 12, as we lost two who decided to fly the coop – literally. I won’t go into details, but of course I was devastated and felt like an unfit parent.

Ultimately, we have no choice but to nip at their feathers a bit so that they can continue to enjoy their outdoor sanctuary as they please.

On a happier note, the turkeys especially love rooting around in what we like to call “Turkey Hollow”, an area of the garden measuring just under a ¼ of an acre that is filled with mature trees, half of which are evergreen and the other whose leaves are falling, providing both protective shade and warm sunlight.

Outside of their daily meal, these hungry ladies are feasting on whatever they can forage, along with piles of kale and collard greens, chard, lovage, mint and any other mixed lettuces that we pick and provide them with each day. I was surprised to learn that our turkeys drink about 10 litres of water per day, not sure why, but that seems like an awful lot of liquid to pass through a bird’s beak.

Next week, we are going to weigh and measure them for the logbook. While they look like they’ve grown exponentially, we’ll just have to see how the numbers add up.

Until then, gobble gobble.