Something else got the turkey before I did. I sat down at my desk this morning and looked out the window. I saw a pile of white feathers in the pasture. I yelled to James and we went to check it out. Whatever killed it ate the head and some of its breast and left the rest. I couldn't tell if it was the turkey I was holding yesterday because the breast feathers were missing so I couldn't see the black feathers that helped me identify it. None of the 3 surviving white turkeys have those feathers this morning so I know it was the one. It's just too weird and upsetting.
I wish I knew what Chy was doing while all this happened. I have to think that her first job was to protect Shiloh. I'm also wondering what the 2 of them will do when Shiloh is older. Will they protect the herd? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out but I'm pretty sure it was the coyote but why wouldn't he take the whole bird? I wish I had a camera out there to video what happened.
It's also very strange that we've had these turkeys for 5 months and had no problem with predators getting them until the night before we were to kill them ourselves.
Maybe there were too many turkeys before and the coyote was afraid they would gang up on him or maybe just an opportune moment and a craving for a snack of turkey.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if it was a coyote or not. I need to do some more research. I hope everything is fine tomorrow morning. All the turkeys have been processed as of today.
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