Bina Ahmad hugged an old friend this weekend — a turkey named Opal she first met five years ago.

“She’s a lot older and chunkier now but she’s still so beautiful,” said Ahmad, a vegan who joined hundreds of people over the weekend to feed turkeys their own Thanksgiving feast.

Ahmad spent Saturday at a turkey-hugging Thanksgiving event in Poplar Farms animal sanctuary in Poolesville, Md., where she kissed turkeys and fed them treats. Similar turkey-honoring events are taking place in animal shelters across the country this week.

“It’s an alternative to the traditional Thanksgiving and it’s really inspiring for thousands of people,” Ahmad said. And Opal? “She loves the attention.”

Four-time NBA championship winner John Salley was also hugging turkeys on Saturday at a 300-acre sanctuary in California run by an animal advocacy group, Farm Sanctuary.

“This time of year, I love to hug turkeys,” said Salley, who first became interested in saving the birds seven years ago and no longer eats meat.

“I was invited to a meat-free Thanksgiving party in the Hollywood Hills. Pamela Anderson was there and they had this live turkey walking around in the front garden. That’s when it really hit me — I got more of a kick out of meeting this turkey than I ever would from eating it.”

On Saturday, Salley and hundreds of others ate a meat-free Thanksgiving dinner and fed cranberries and pumpkin to the shelter’s resident turkeys.

“It’s always fun. When the guests come for Thanksgiving, the turkeys look at them sideways, trying to figure them out. If they trust you, they love to be petted. They become like family,” said Lorri Houston, founder of Animals Acres in Acton, Calif.

Houston is likely the inventor of the turkey-petting Thanksgiving, having first organized one in 1986, after she co-founded Farm Sanctuary.

“It was coming up to Thanksgiving and I remember saying: ‘This is a sad festival for turkey lovers, unless we turn it on its head and feed the turkeys.’ Now there are turkey-feeding Thanksgivings all over the country.”