Horton and Maisy, how they got their names

A Turkey is faithful 100 %

If you are a regular at my blog you have probably already"met" Horton in a previous post

you just didn't know his REAL name...

Drum roll please.....Will the real Horton please stand up?

Yes, Horton was inadvertently dubbed one of the Smothers brothers, however , here at farm funnies, names sometimes "need" a bit of shifting.

Occasionally a name doesn't "fit" . Sometimes as a critter "settles" in to life here, or matures into something "else", a name needs "correcting" .

As experienced as I am ,at who "is" what, I occasionally make a mistake . Black Jewel ,a sweet little black girl kitten, was "discovered" by the vet, to be a handsome fella...ok by me, since the critter "fee" for altering is about half the cost of spaying. Jewel is still just as sweet, and I'm sure the mice never even noticed the difference.

Back to Horton, this is the rescued turkey with a broken wing, ( Horton has healed very well, by the way, Doc Betty take a bough... aww shucks, just in a day's work )

As you may remember, in a previous "turkey" post Horton was faithfully sitting on eggs. Itty Bitty call duck eggs, by the way. Farm Funny's Hubby, coming in after a farm " walk about" said , hey I have a name for that stupid turkey...Horton. You know the one..Horton the elephant , a kids story about an elephant who is faithful 100%, enduring many trials, who eventually hatches an egg, which had been abandoned by flibbity jibbit mother Maisey.

By the way, Horton, faithful turkey that he is, inspired Little Black . She was a lonely little banty hen. I placed her in my "rescue" pen, after she had suffered much abuse from some old biddies one day and was badly injured ( why do chickens have such a morbid pecking order I wonder? She recovered very nicely too. Horton literally took little black under his wing, to learn the "ropes" to egg sitting 101..

Every one is content, UNTIL:...

RING, RING, RING...Betty....would ....you consider,....rescuing a pair of abandoned birds?

My pottery teacher's and good friends Tim and Vicki had neighbors who lost their home due to foreclosure . They just left these poor things to fend for themselves.

Into the car goes my handy dandy bird netting, and off I go... vrooom

The hen was already caught, we hunted and hunted for her fella, with out much luck He is a big bird and we saw him when we first arrived, where could such a big bird hide so well? The hen had an egg in the pen with her, which she was neglecting. (in all fairness, birds generally don't do much with their eggs ,until they have a clutch... unless the bird is a canary, they often start setting on their first egg, not a good plan...( as #1 hatches earlier, guess who grows the fastest, has a bigger mouth, and gets the biggest share of specially "prepared" mom and pop " chow, thus baby "brother" may not get enough nourishment , and rapidly wastes away. While this is very sad in and of itself, at $100+ a pop for singers, one especially doesn't want this to happen . Not that I've had any for sale , recently and this year is a "replacement" singers year, for farm funnies.

On to Maisey, what is she, and how did she get her name?

Maisey is evidently a WOW hot momma, peafowl. I am assuming that is true, because 100% faithful Horton, kind of "flew the coop". With out so much as a by your leave, he left Little Black, high and dry with those duck eggs.

It seemed fitting to call the new arrival Maisey , since she was batting her eyes at Horton, and apparently could care less where her egg was. A day later she had decided Horton was a REAL turkey!

Maisey has since left two more eggs in a little hallowed out hovel. I guess I need to do some research and brush up on peafowl 101., I need to especially know what I'm writing about for them. You may have already imagined, I had never dreamed of getting peafowl, but when life brings you a lemonade, why enjoy it !

I guess you could say , this past week the "home" health care "provider (me)...well ,I do feed, water, care for, patch up AND clean up after them.." fowled the poultry up but good.

In the dark of night the duck eggs were transferred to another black banty hen, who just so happened to have "mysteriously" received some RI red and Araucana eggs a week or so earlier, while she was the setting mode. Then just as "mysteriously" Little Black, eggs enlarged in size.

I remembered reading somewhere , that some birds remain fertile for a while after their mate is gone. I guess I'll tuck in a prayer for Little Black to not become bored with the extension to her incubation period , to see if this info hold true for peafowl. Little Black was about due to hatch the duck eggs, this transformation with the "mystery" eggs adds 15 to 21 days, to her brooding. So I am guessing 40 some days on her little nest "ark" w/o rain, running around ,scratching in the dirt, looking for bugs, or just fun in the sun. When the peafowl male is finally captured, perhaps Noah would be a fitting name .

Ok Horton, faithfull