PERDUE, Sask. – Kim Elderkin keeps her promises. That’s why Tommy the guard turkey is still alive.
The four-year-old turkey that romps on Elderkin’s quarter of land in west-central Saskatchewan with her dogs and Dexter cattle is a character.
Tommy was raised on Elderkin’s property near Carmangay, Alta., as one of a flock of 50 Broad-Breasted Bronze turkeys destined for the table. She was slaughtering the flock when a storm blew in. Only Tommy was left when she decided to stop. As she was herding a flock of chickens into an indoor enclosure she noticed the turkey poult lingering.
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“I said ‘Tommy come with us now and you’ll live.’ And he followed us in.
“I had made him a promise and I couldn’t break it, even if only to an animal.”
The $50 that Tommy was worth as meat has been repaid many times by his amusing personality, she said.
Tommy came with Elderkin’s other animals when she relocated to Saskatchewan two years ago. She said she moved because a quarter of land is cheaper than what she paid for five acres in Alberta.
Tommy thinks he’s a dog, Elderkin said. He runs with the pet dogs and the work dogs that herd the cattle and drive off coyotes. He plays tag with the horse, roosts on the corral and eats only crunchy dogfood.
He will tolerate petting and when Elderkin coos “pretty boy” at him, he fans out his feathers and struts.
He has also been known to act as a guard. When a couple of strangers drove up one night, the dogs and the turkey flew at them. The men left quickly, said Elderkin. Tommy regularly comes out to the vehicle to greet visitors to the farm and the dogs treat him like another one of the pack.
But he is also friendly to the poultry Elderkin raises each summer.
The one thing he can’t seem to master is walking up the steps of the deck to her house. Elderkin laughed as she said he could easily fly up but seems to want to try it on his own two feet.
“He gobbles and chirps and when I’m out there he follows me when I work, into the barn and the field.”
Tommy might have another four or five years left in him, said poultry professor Hank Classen of the University of Saskatchewan. It is hard to know how long a turkey can live since they are usually slaughtered before they are a year old, he said.
