{"id":2866,"date":"2025-12-22T09:37:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T09:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=2866"},"modified":"2025-12-22T09:37:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T09:37:16","slug":"we-adopted-two-turkeys-we-cant-bear-to-eat-them-at-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=2866","title":{"rendered":"We adopted two turkeys \u2013 we can\u2019t bear to eat them at Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Walking into my parents\u2019 living room, the usual welcoming chaos suddenly ground to a stunned halt.<\/p>\n

Everyone was at home \u2013 my brother, sister, dog, and parents \u2013 but they all seemed collectively surprised at my arrival. Though perhaps that had more to do with my guests than me.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019d just ushered two white-feathered turkeys across the threshold and it seemed no one knew quite how to react.<\/p>\n

This idea had started as a joke: every\u00a0Christmas, my vegetarian mum<\/a>\u00a0would complain about cooking meat for the family when she doesn\u2019t \u2018touch the stuff\u2019, and as nobody else seemed keen to take the job on, I thought there had to be a way to lighten the mood.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, last year, I decided to buy\u00a0two live turkeys<\/a>\u00a0and release them into the house on Christmas Day. Between mum\u2019s hatred of cooking turkey and everyone else\u2019s obsession with eating it, the prank had the potential to wind the whole family up at once.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, my parents live on a smallholding and already\u00a0have a flock of geese<\/a>\u00a0and chickens, so my new friends would fit right in among the flock \u2013 or so we thought.<\/p>\n

For around two months, I gleefully concocted a plan, scouring adverts online for turkeys nearby (most of which had morbid lines about on-track fattening for Christmas). I eventually found a farmer in Halifax and agreed to pay \u00a332 in cash.<\/p>\n

There was just one small detail I\u2019d overlooked: the obvious fact that these birds would usually be \u2018processed\u2019 a lot earlier than Christmas.<\/p>\n

So, with nowhere else to keep them, my family received their present a little early. On a wintry Sunday in mid-December, I knocked on my parents\u2019 front door and yelled \u2018Surprise!\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Under the twinkling fairylights, my family stared between me and the bedraggled-looking birds in both bewilderment and stunned silence, each of them processing the uninvited guests on their own timelines.<\/p>\n

Eventually, my mum stuttered: \u2018Oh my God.\u2019<\/p>\n

And then, as if on cue, one bird let out a gobble, which pushed everyone into hysterics.<\/p>\n

As the turkeys began padding around and\u00a0making themselves at home<\/a>, talk turned to naming them.<\/p>\n

My 17-year-old brother thoughtfully suggested we call them Mistle and Toe \u2013 an idea that my 22-year-old sister quickly branded \u2018ridiculous\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Once the turkeys were allowed to roam, every evening became a HIIT session: ducking, dodging, and lunging as the birds darted (and face-planted) across the garden.<\/p>\n

Their routine only improved when my dad introduced their \u2018second dinner\u2019. Swayed by their stomachs, the turkeys began happily returning to their coop, with two caveats: they can\u2019t navigate the stepped entrance, and they can\u2019t always remember where it is.<\/p>\n

Come nightfall, they sometimes squat in the grass, waiting to be found, carried, and tucked into bed with a treat. It\u2019s a bratty existence, and if one day, someone forgets, the local fox will be delighted.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What they lack in coordination and survival skills, they surprisingly compensate for in emotional intelligence and will often waddle away from the food, instead crooning at our feet for a scratch and quick conversation.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly then, it wasn\u2019t long before my aggressively carnivorous dad had announced that, under no circumstances,\u00a0was turkey to be served<\/a>\u00a0this Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u2018Obviously,\u2019 my brother retorted. Even my sister, who had casually started introducing the turkeys to her friends, added that the concept was too sadistic. And so that\u2019s been that.<\/p>\n

Much to mum\u2019s delight, and Carol and Ivy\u2019s too, turkey is firmly\u00a0off\u00a0<\/em>the menu for the resident meat-eaters in our house now.<\/p>\n

Chicken is now the meat du jour on Christmas day \u2013 which I admit smacks of favouritism \u2013 but given that domestic turkeys can live a decade, it looks like that won\u2019t be changing any time soon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking into my parents\u2019 living room, the usual welcoming chaos suddenly ground to a stunned halt. Everyone was at home \u2013 my brother, sister, dog, and parents \u2013 but they all seemed collectively surprised at my arrival. Though perhaps that had more to do with my guests than me. Because I\u2019d just ushered two white-feathered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t