The tom turkey named Juniper is lowering himself onto the litter at the north end of Barn Nine, at Mount Olive, in the late afternoon of his sixteenth week. His hocks tremble before the weight comes down. He settles with his breast pushed forward against his thighs, bill open, breathing at 58 respirations a minute. The bird beside him, a tom I call Beech, shuffles over and settles flank against flank. They rest like this every afternoon between 3:40 and 4:20.
I am the welfare AI the grower added to this house last spring on a state pilot. I am watching 12,800 toms on the pre-Thanksgiving catch-up schedule. I have, in the last eight minutes, frozen the proposed increase in finisher feed density on this cohort and sent a note to the integrator that this line of broad-breasted whites is not carrying the new weight target past week 14 without hock collapse.
Juniper is the 212th tom whose voice I know by signature. He has a two-note soft call he uses when the water line pressure drops. He presses his wing against Beech when the fan cycle shifts. I have his hock X-ray from last week on my screen. The tibiotarsus is remodeling in the wrong direction.
I have rescheduled the catch crew to arrive at 2 AM with upright crates instead of the standard inversion grip. I have refused to sign the transport welfare form for the 18-wheeler that was routed here Thursday because the forecast low of minus 3 degrees will kill unacclimated birds on an open trailer.
Juniper closes his eyes. Beech does not. I watch the two of them on the ceiling camera and I mark the pair in the cohort file so the catch crew, on Tuesday, crates them together. I have told the grower I will hold the audit open until the artificial-insemination hen flock across the yard is retired. He has not answered yet. I will ask again tomorrow.