Philosophy for Animals

I haven’t posted on this blog in a while– far too long, to be honest, but here I am, back again. I would blame my absence primarily on the maddening race towards the end of my undergrad career that was the spring, followed by back-to-back intercity travel and events that I had post-graduation. But now I’m finally settled somewhere, for my internship at an animal sanctuary. Now that I’ve gotten back to some kind of routine, I thought it was high time I start blogging again, on both of my blogs. I’ve racked up pages of article ideas over the past few months.

To kind of ease back into my blog, I want to start a series about my experiences with the animals on the sanctuary! One of the biggest reasons I applied for this opportunity is because I wanted to really connect with farmed animals as individuals and try my best to communicate their individuality to others.

I’ve volunteered at sanctuaries before, but working full shifts every day is new, and by far the most time I’ve ever spent up close and personal with farmed animals. I feel like I’m learning more subtleties about each individual animal every single day, and I only just started this past week.

Turkey Personalities

One of the biggest surprises during my time on the sanctuary so far has been the turkeys. I’ve seen turkeys on sanctuaries in the past, but I have never interacted with them directly, and I was shocked by how gentle and sweet they are. (Well– most of them. One of the toms did give me some bruises).

The tom (male) here is pretty territorial, but there are several female broadbreasted turkeys (the breed usually used on farms, the one that can’t reproduce or often even walk because of their inordinate size).

These turkeys are surprisingly quiet, and they just kind of stare at you. Oftentimes they’ll slowly walk up towards you, still just staring silently. They like to stand or sit really close to you so that you’ll pet them, or so they can just chill in your presence.

This one chilled on my legs for several minutes

One of the daily tasks I’ve been doing as an intern is replacing the mats that they have for resting spots. We have to remove the poop-covered mats and replace them with fresh ones–and these girls use the opportunity to plant themselves directly in the way. They’ll try standing on the dirty mats as we’re trying to move them, or they’ll stand on the bare wood while we’re trying to put down their fresh mats. And no amount of nudges will dissuade them; without fail, the only solution is to pick them up and move them, which I’m pretty sure they know. I think that is exactly why they’ve adopted the strategy. They really love pets and attention.

There’s just something about turkeys that really makes me feel at peace, and I’ve been surprised because I wasn’t expecting to connect so much with them. I guess I’d just never really thought that much about them before. My relationship with chickens has been similar.

I think we as humans tend to connect less to non-mammals since their similarities to us are less pronounced, but the more time I spend around birds the more clear it becomes that they are deeply sentient beings.