The truck was in the afternoon and we had our work cut out for us
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Baby turkeys need a warm environment to survive, around 32 degrees Celsius and so the massive barn that they live in is heated to that. In the morning we needed to clean out the sterilizing fluid from the waterers in the barn and make sure that everything was ready for the turkeys. This was around two hours of moving buckets of water, walking and moving in the hot box, we sweated gallons.
After lunch the turkeys arrived but not as normal. Because of the concern for disease transmission the truck is sprayed down with a sterile spray by the driver. He accidentally sterilized the inside too, with the turkeys inside.
It was just a moist spray but it made for some very wet cold turkeys getting unloaded on a cold November day. Turkeys come in boxes with four sections and we keep the hens and toms separate, each box contains sixty chicks. There were six of us unloading and it took a while.
We unloaded the boxes and set them inside the low fence after all the boxes were laid out the boxes are all opened and then the box is (rather unceremoniously) dumped upside down and removed, this helps all the chicks all adapt at once together.
After the chicks are out, they start eating and drinking almost immediately. But they must be checked on regularly, if they get cold it doesn't take long for them to crowd into a corner and suffocate one another. To check on them, we go into the loud hot barn and walk the pens changing water looking for chicks that are dead or laying on their side ( we flip them back over) and signs of crowding. This check is made every few hours for the first three days.
I have been up to much more than baby turkeys though! We went to a beautiful castle that had an art show inside. The art wasn't really my cup of tea (very abstract...) but we climbed the tower and got a great view of the forests and villages surrounding us. It was sunset and absolutely breathtaking.The castle was renovated in 1997 due to heavy bombing in WWII and when my host mom was a child she used to play in the castle ruins.
This family does some things that are really really similar to what my family does. Such as eats pizza while watching The Voice. Or has wrestling matches in the kitchen. Needless to say I feel extremely at home here which is wonderful after being away for so long. I get to drive here too, which is always a bit scary on the narrow crowded German streets but fun non the less :)
We have been making cookies in the down time as well, grandma (who speaks no English) and I go baking some afternoons, there is quite a bit of charades going on but we get it figured out.
And last but not least we went to the theater (or cinema as they say) and saw The Hunger Games movie. It was in German but that wasn't the biggest adjustment. The ONLY popcorn they sell is kettle corn. So weird, and depressing. I'm adding that to things I miss from the US. The movie was good, between the visual part, common sense, and my limited German, I knew what was happening, mostly.
That's all for now! Looking forward to the next adventures with this family!
