Blake Shelton on Having Pet Turkeys: 'It's Still Hard to Talk About'

Because Blake Shelton is from the country, he is used to having animals around, including a few pet turkeys! Shelton seems to have mixed emotions about his former birds, recalling one unfortunate Thanksgiving episode that seemed to indicate how Shelton really felt about the pets that he tried to domesticate.

"It's still hard to talk about my pet turkey because it's dead," Shelton admitted to Martina McBride on her Vocal Point podcast (via Yahoo). "I had several pet turkeys over the years, probably three of them. And I just kept renaming them 'Turkey' because I figured, they're not going to live very long and this way it'll seem like I've had a pet for ten or twelve years."

Shelton might have been frustrated with some of his turkeys' aggression, but he did find a way to get even with one of them – sort of.

"I used to feed my turkey turkey," Shelton admitted. "One Thanksgiving, I went out in the backyard — it stayed by the back door so it could beat the hell out of you every time you came outside. That was its game — and one day I walked out there with a plate after Thanksgiving of Stove Top stuffing."

"I just threw it out in the yard and watched it eat that," Shelton added with a laugh. "Just knowing it was stuffing itself. Something about that made me so happy."

Shelton's actions towards his turkey may not have been ideal, but he admits he was frustrated with the behavior of the wild animals.

"Strong, and just committed to whipping your a–– before you get in the car," Shelton said of his turkeys. "Every day! It had decent spurs, but it was mostly its wings. It would just beat you to death."

Shelton is not afraid of many things, but he acknowledges his pet turkeys gave him at least a touch of anxiety.

"When I still lived in Tennessee, I used to go out and purposely try to get to my truck, no trouble," Shelton recounted. "And I would end up in a fistfight with that turkey … I remember slapping it in the face as hard as I can just to get it off of me. Nothing you could do would deter this turkey."

No word if Shelton still has any turkeys at his Oklahoma ranch. Shelton's latest single, "Hell Right," his duet with Trace Adkins, is currently in the Top 20.

Photo Credit: Getty images / C Flanigan