Joey’s Pet of the Week – The Tale of a Bush Turkey

By Scott Lackenby | Dated October 19, 2016

Heya peeps! How are you all? Thank you again for all of the birthday wishes. I had a truly pawsome day. And proving the power of social media, I was allowed to have cake and no one mentioned my diet!! Although it’s back onto the meager rations now.

Sleeping off the birthday celebrations

Nurse William has been on holidays to Japan. I didn’t even have to remind him to send me a postcard!! Although he does lose some brownie points for making fun of my lizard collar. Speaking of postcards, Dr John is keeping with tradition by not sending me one. He has been in Bali for a friend’s wedding and I didn’t get a thing from him. And it was my birthday!!

This week, my star is a Bush Turkey, who was brought into us by a caring member of the public.

a scrub turkey or bush turkey scraping for worms and grubs

The turkey had been seen in the area, in St Ives Chase, for about a week. He had a nasty limp. Dr David Owen  checked him over and found a nasty wound on his leg. After cleaning it up, Dr David was quite worried about the turkey. The wound was going to need some extensive treatment which would mean a long time in care. Nurse Layne took some pictures of the wound and emailed them to our good friends at WIRES to see what they recommended. The turkey, being a wild bird, was getting quite stressed by being around the GVH humans, so we set him up in a cage with some food and let him chill out.

Dr John Morgan had a look at our turkey friend the next morning. Mr Turkey was a little more compliant this time around and Dr John also discovered the turkey had an old fracture of his wing that hadn’t healed properly.  A flight check in a consult room, which I wasn’t invited to witness, showed that the turkey wasn’t able to fly. This, coupled with his nasty leg injury unfortunately meant he would be able to be rehabilitated and released, so he was humanely euthanised. It really is a crappy part of the job, but it would not be fair to release him and leave him to suffer.

I know I say this every time we talk about wildlife, but remember, if you find an injured native, be sure to bring it in to us. Or to your closest Vet. Just make sure you are safe about it. I certainly don’t want to see you getting hurt bringing in something. If in doubt, give either Sydney Wildlife Service or WIRES a call for advice. Both organisations are run by some truly amazing volunteers.

Well, I’m going to go and enjoy some more of this glorious sunshine. Meows for now, love Joey xoxo