Police, DNR come to rescue after turkey breaks into Apple Valley home
APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — A break-in, right before mid-day Thursday at an Apple Valley home — glass everywhere, Stefanie Nipp was there to witness it all.
"It came through like a freight train," said Nipp. "It was huge."
The culprit was caught red-waddled after breaking through both panes of Nipp's kitchen window.
"Immediately I was stunned. It took me a second to kind of look to see what it was," said Nipp. "I hollered for my neighbor across the street, I was like 'Can you come help me, a turkey just came through my window.'"
The turkey was stuck there on her kitchen floor for about an hour.
"It just stayed there, I'm sure it was stunned. It did start bleeding a little bit from the beak," said Nipp.
Apple Valley police and the Department of Natural Resources arrived on the scene and helped the animal into the backyard before it took off.
The now boarded-up window created an artistic opportunity.
"We let our daughter paint a picture," said Nipp.
"We thought it would be funny to have a little turkey going through the window," said Stefanie Nipp's 11-year-old daughter, Layla Nipp, about her new window art creation.
In her near-decade of living here, Nipp said she has never seen anything quite like this.
"When I called the non-emergency dispatcher he was not surprised, he was like this was actually just the first call this year, but not the first call I've ever had. Just for him to not be shocked by it I was a little taken back," said Nipp.
Spring is turkey mating season, after all, and this Tom Turkey didn't let anything, not even a window, stand in the way of his search for love.
"The only thing you can do is laugh about it, I mean really just kind of not really a bucket list you wanted to check off for the end of the year, but here we are," said Nipp.
