Sunday, September 12, 2010

My decision was made for me

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.

2 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. I 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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