Living with suicidal turkeys

I have to constantly turkey-proof my farmyard to prevent the little bastards from offing themselves. That's 1x2" cage wire across the top of my trough that I use to water the chickens. Having this wire over the water prevents the poultry from drowning themselves in the water. What happens is that they hop up and try to perch on the edge of the trough, but teeter and fall in, or get pushed in by another bird. That's an automatic waterer on the left side of the trough, and this setup has been pretty good for me. It's simple, waters multiple animals, and is turkey safe. It also takes a while to ice up. The ice freezes the feed hose first. it takes 2 weeks of below-freezing to freeze the water.

Here a daredevil turkey flirts with death by walking along the edge of the trough. Note the brick on the right edge of the photo. That's there to allow smaller birds to drink without having to hop up.

I use the cage wire because i had some fatalities with chicken wire, my first choice. They seemed to get their feet stuck in the chicken wire and get hypothermia and die. the cage wire is stiff enough that they can get a good grip on the wire and just walk out.