A few years ago. When my husband and I were young and full of energy. Before we ever made our commitment to adopt children. We adopted a lot of animals.

One Easter we purchased what we were told were two ducks. One was this cute little yellow fellow with a bright orange bill. Whom we were sure fit the discription so to speak and we named him "Duckie", the other was a bit different. We asked the lady if she was sure that this other was a duck. She assured us that it was in fact a "duck", but just a different breed of duck. Well we knew different but the two little tykes seemed to get along just fine so we purchased them both and brought them home.

As they grew, we began to notice that even if both looked vastly different ....they learned to play and eat just about the same. Duckie was growing leaps and bounds. He followed us all over the place. Then one day he began to scurry off on his own. The second little guy whom we called "Baby" was still following behind me.

The bigger he got the more comical he seemed to become. We enjoyed many moments of profound laughter watching Duckie and Baby play. Baby hated water and Duckie loved it. At last one big difference between them. Other than one had a beak and the other had bill.

We were certain that Baby was some kind of Chicken.
But he had his own way of looking goofy. So we were not really sure what type of Chicken he was.

One day Duckie was off playing and we noticed that
Baby seemed listless. We looked at him and called the vet. We of course could not answer all the vets questions because we didn't really know what kind of fowl Baby was. So we took him into the vets office.

We were amazed to find out that Baby was in fact not a chicken but rather a "Turkey." He was having issues with his bowl system because he was consuming duck food and should have been on a different diet. Then the vet began to apologize. He said that during cleaning the tail of Baby the technician had accidently turned Baby from a male into a female.

She had taken her nail to scrape off some of his "Crusted Bowl" and had mistakenly removed his
testicles in the process.

We didn't know weather to laugh of cry. We decided to take Baby home. Change his diet, and let him grow up and be whatever he would be. It didn't matter to us if he was male or female. We just knew we loved him. We had adopted him knowingly that he was not a duck. To us he was just a treasured friend.

Much to the surprise of the vet and us. Baby lived through his traumatic experience and grew up to be one big beautiful Turkey. Duckie turned into one of the most handsome Ducks on earth. Both of our pets would follow me wherever I would go.

Duckie lived with us until one day out of the blue sky he took off in flight and never came home again.
We hope Duckie found his mate and is living happily ever after.

Baby on the other hand was one funny adult turkey.
he still thought I was his mommy and followed me wherever I went.

One day the city inspector stopped by as Baby followed me up the side walk. He pulled his car over and got out. He watched as Baby would stop and play with the kids next door. Then he would waddle down to me and come into the back yard.

The inspector was very nice but he informed me that Baby would have to go. We were not allowed to have farm animals as pets in the city limits. Well this made me and my husband very sad. We had given Baby so much love and attention over the time we had been blessed to know him. We just could not phantom the idea that our Baby could end up on some ones Thanksgiving Table.

What would we do? How could we make sure that Baby would have a secure life and live to be a good Old Turkey? It was our choice to love him that made the difference.

He was truly amazing. We were fortunate that when our families heard about our problem. Someone came to our rescue. My sister had a friend with a big Farm. They raised Ducks and Chickens. We knew that our Baby got along perfectly with Ducks so there would be no problem in him adapting to other animals. So he went off to live a happy life on a Farm.

Baby lived for a long time. He was just a character
and no one who met him could help but to fall in love with him.

It has been a few years now since Baby went on to his Turkey Heaven. Every year at Thanksgiving we fondly recall our Baby. He who brought us so much joy and laughter. He who we were told was a Duck and ended up being a Turkey. He who lost his testicles to the raft of a vet technician. He who played cheerfully with our neighborhood kids. He who never graced a Thanksgiving Table. All because he was adopted by us and we were given a chance to love our Baby.