Friday, October 17, 2014

Wild Turkey

This is the hatch of wild turkeys who have been hanging around all summer.  This is a mother and her brood, which she hatched out very late in the season.  I think there started out being fifteen of them, lately, I consistently see ten.  There are always one or two hens who raise babies in my pasture each Spring.  This group was born in mid July, which is very late for babies to be hatching.  The mother must have lost her first clutch.  I wasn't expecting them and I nearly mowed them over with the brush hog.  I ended up having to leave a portion of the field un-mowed since I didn't want to kill them.  They've been making daily circuits around the property for weeks now. 

They LOVE the dust wallows that the donkeys have created and stop by for a bath every morning.

They stay clear of the donkeys because Emma will push them out of the pasture, but they also follow along behind them picking through their leavings.  They do a great job of breaking up manure piles.
 
I had the maybe-bright-idea to create a flower bed on this unmowable stretch along the driveway....

I used a telephone pole that the electric company took down in the Spring, filled it well aged manure....

Covered it with straw and figured I'd leave it till Spring.

The turkeys had a blast tearing it to shreds.

I haven't seen them for a few days now.  That's how turkeys are though.  They hang out in the same area for weeks or months at a time and then, for some unknowable turkey reason, they move on.  I probably won't see them again until Spring.  I'll give it a few more days though before I bother to repair the "flower bed" again.



10 comments:

  1. You always have an interesting project going. The turkeys thank you for providing yet another fun banquet.

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  2. I would dearly love for our nearby turkeys to come closer to the house. I hear them in the morning, but they stay well away from the house.
    I looked very closely at your little brood and I don't see one "beard" among them. I wonder if she hatched a group of mostly hens?
    Love your flower bed idea!!

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    1. These are all still juveniles, I doubt that they are all hens. They probably just aren't old enough to grow a beard yet:)

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  3. Fun to watch I bet and some benefits too! :) Glad you are back out and about and enjoying your posts again!

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    1. The turkeys do a lot of good, they are great manure spreaders:)

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  4. I'm confused. You put the manure over plastic? and the telephone pole keeps it in place? How come you didn't put the manure down with hay and plastic over it? Just city girl asking: :)

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    1. The pole holds everything in place. I put landscape fabric down first to help prevent the weeds from coming up through the manure next year. In the Spring, I'll add more mulch to the top. I want to plant something like wild day lilies that will spread, choke out weeds and fill in the whole space. I want LOW maintenance:)

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  5. In Australia we have bush turkeys. They rip up your gardens and make a hell of a mess. Luckily my dogs don't like turkey's so we don't see them around our place. Funny thing is, my dogs will chase a turkey but won't bother my hens...

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  6. Turkeys can make a mess of things, we used to let out turkeys and hens out of their fenced area in the fall so they could clean up the garden mess.
    I see a lot of crop damage locally from them too.
    But I always enjoy seeing a mom and her brood! I caught some on my Trailcam this year, they were a hoot!

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