Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Reprieve for the Turkeys

Well, the turkeys earned a reprieve from the freezer for another couple weeks. Well, for 2 reasons.

1. We were going thru an entire feeder in the chicken house every day, plus the turkeys were eating everything we put out for Heathcliff and we figured they were eating us out of house and home and we were going to have to hack them sooner than we had planned.... them being so nasty tempered plus eating so much. We know how much chickens should eat - especially when we are letting them range all over the entire property.

So we couldn't figure out what was happening to the feed..... then last night Justin went out to work on the new goat barn and he got around the corner just in time to see Gretta - the big momma goat - slipping thru the tiny chicken door into the chicken house to eat their grain. She is really big, we have absolutely no idea how she squeezed thru that tiny door, but he saw it with his own eyes. so that mystery was solved and we had to apologize to the turkeys.

2. Alicia and I were in our studio on the 3rd floor and she had a window open to the back yard and we heard a funny sound. At first we thought the dog was into something but she was laying on the stairs asleep. so alicia went over to the window and looked down on the back yard and the Turkey was in full battle array - his head was as red as a tomato and his back was all ruffled and his tail splayed. And he was making a funny chortle. She said, "What's the matter turkey" and this bird flew up and out toward the pond. she didn't get a good look at him, but as near as she could tell it was some kind of falcon.

the Turkeys had corralled all the chickens so that the turkeys were between them and the falcon and had encouraged the other chickens to fly into the goat pens and hide. As soon as the falcon flew away, the chickens in the yard ran as fast as they could into their house. Alicia and I went down and herded and chucked the rest into their house and shut them in until the guys can come home and secure chicken pen. these chickens are really good escape artists, so we have let them be completely free range, but they will have to be penned up now that they have been "discovered." We had the turkeys come out of the chicken house for the afternoon so they wouldn't eat all the feed and they both lay down - one on either side of the chicken ramp and have stood guard for over an hour.

good one on them. We expect that from Heathcliff, but have never seen anything like gallant behavior from these turkeys before --- and Heathcliff is molting so he has no strength to fight anything. He can barely walk across the yard, poor thing.

I didn't even know I could navigate the stairs in such record time. Good to know I still have it in me in an emergency. My heart is still racing, though. WHEW.

2 comments:

the Carlos Family said...

those are some lucky birds!

Ben said...

Wait, who's Heathcliff again?

And what kind of turkeys do you raise up there? And do they taste better the feistier they are?

Glad to hear you can still race up and down the stairs...now I want to see you do it with a bucket on your head!