They say that turkey vultures rarely eat any live prey and the prey they eat is mostly things like grasshoppers and washed up shrimp or snails.  But I am getting a bit suspicious of the large flock that uses our land for its home roost.  They have been around here every summer for the last few years.

 I noticed them flying very low, just above my head, over the chicken pasture and pond areas, a few days ago, something I never noticed in previous years.  And then the next day 2 of the turkey chicks from the hen that nested out by the pond disappeared.  What makes that more suspicious is that she took the remaining chick up by the barn and is now hanging out there, close to the tom turkeys and where she can rest under the lilac bushes and apple trees with the chick.  The other hen and her solitary chick are there too.

We have had baby ducks and baby chicken chicks up in the area around the barn without problems but that turkey hen was ranging way out in the pasture looking for autumn olive berries and other things.  I think they were also going to the pond to drink, which meant crossing a wide bare area because of how far the pond has dried up.

 My sister in Missouri says she has seen them snatch and eat small birds.  But there is a chance that she is seeing black vultures instead of turkey vultures and black vultures do take live prey much more often.  And since the government says that black vultures are spreading north I wonder if some of the birds I’m seeing are not turkey vultures. Maybe there are black vultures mixed in. I will have to pay closer attention.

 I do know that they keep flying low over the chicken and turkey areas and I also noticed that my birds are spending more time in the taller weeds and under trees and bushes.  It worries me a bit because I do want these turkeys to grow up.  And I hope to have a bunch of ducks hatching soon.  We have had rotten luck in the reproductive category this year with the birds.  First something eating the eggs, now when we do get some chicks those are going.

 I have actually enjoyed watching the vultures soaring around, although it does make me feel funny when I am on the ground weeding and they are circling overhead.  They roost in our tall trees in the woods.  I can watch them landing on the trees and squabbling for spots.  Sometimes they break off dead limbs and I can see and hear them crashing down from across the pond.  I just recently found out that turkey vultures nest on the ground, sometimes in old barns.   I think they may be nesting in our tangle of a woods and I also see some frequently perched on some old silos down the road.

 

Turkey vultures are protected by law and can’t be harmed and I don’t want to harm them they do valuable work cleaning up dead deer and rabbits.  But I do wish they would leave my babies alone.  I could be blaming the wrong species, there are hawks around but I haven’t seen any big hawks lately.  And we do have owls too, but the turkeys seem to huddle down under things at night when the babies are young.  The suspicious part is why the vultures are suddenly flying so low over the barnyard.  There’s nothing dead here.

 We have been doing our summer cleaning of chicken coops, boy is that a smelly job.  Most of it is dusty but some areas around the water containers are wet.   We do it a bit at a time so we aren’t breathing that dust for long periods.   Steve does most of it, working from his wheelchair.

 We are reworking our housing arrangements so that ducks and turkeys will be separated from chickens inside this winter and moving the lights on timers, little things like that.  Now that we don’t have to have an area free for the horses and hay storage there will be more room for the birds.  We have had to repair our “greenhouse” roof over the chicken run outside their area several times.  Something ripped the clear plastic.  We replaced that with a blue tarp over one half and will probably have to tarp over the other side too.  You still get some light through a tarp but not like clear plastic.  Since I intend to carry over fewer hens this winter that area won’t be quite as needed anyway.

 
Right now the chickens can range over a large pasture area but they don’t really go that far.  I say they stay within 100 feet of the barn most of the time.  They have separate groups that go to different areas.  I do think our poultry have a pretty nice life here.

Be careful what you wish for.  There’s an old saying I have used a lot this month.  Right now I am using it in the context of rain- we needed it but boy are we getting it today.( August 10)  We had  2-1/4 inches in the gauge this am and it has rained steadily, sometimes torrentially all day.   I had to unload groceries in pouring rain.  I sat in the car waiting for it to quit but it never did and I didn’t want the frozen food to thaw so I slogged the short distance from car to back door unloading groceries and getting drenched.

I worry most about the turkey hen with her three chicks out by the pond.  She had her nest under a flowering quince which helped keep animals and other birds away but doesn’t shield rain too well.  She could go to dozens of places where the cover is better or for that matter into the barn but she stays huddled under that bush when it rains, with the chicks under her.   I tried putting a tent like cover over her with an old plastic seed variety sign but I couldn’t get it all the way over her because of the bush.  And she is too stubborn to move under it more.  That’s why turkeys get the reputation of being stupid.

 My other older red turkey hen finally got to hatch a baby.  At least she is in the barn with it, not in the rain.  The poor thing has had such bad luck with her nests and she almost had more.  I was going to throw out the nest yesterday because I thought the eggs were way past hatching date.   I didn’t feel good yesterday so it got put off to today and lo and behold - a chick. 

 The other mama turkey that has her 3 chicks in the front yard was smart enough to bring them into the front of the barn today.  They sit in there right next to the cats.  They have been coming in the front of the barn to eat cat food anyway- those little ones have it made.  Thats her in the photo, we call her the front yard turkey. ( By the way I pulled the weeds in front of the flower bed after I saw the picture.)

 I had to separate one of the young frizzle roosters, the one that is the spitting image of his grandfather, my pet frizzle rooster, from the rest of the chickens.  He wouldn’t leave the young hens alone; he kept chasing them into the coop, constantly herding them somewhere.  The old, bigger roosters even left him alone. I put him on the turkey side of the barn.  There are 3 half grown chicks out there; so far he’s left them alone.  The other 3 roosters his age just hang on the edges and don’t make trouble.

 We have started culling some of the older hens.  Steve took 6 of them up to the market and they sold within 15 minutes.  I sent the oldest rooster with them but no one wanted him and he got to come back home.  There are still about 10 older hens left but at least one is sitting on eggs and I am only picking up 4-5 eggs each day now.  But the young hens should be laying in about a month.

 My little frizzle- sizzle hens are good layers.  Their eggs are small but they lay regularly.  The trouble is they start sitting on them soon as they get a big pile.  I have been picking them up lately and feeding them to the cats.   One hen is sitting on a huge pile now.  I am hoping the 2 pairs of tiny bantams I kept will also lay and sit well because they might be good sellers.  One pair are Porcelains, the other Belgian Antwerps.

 Our county fair is this week and I took a turn watching the Master Gardener display barn this Wednesday.  We have a butterfly tent where kids can go inside and feed monarchs Gatorade off their finger.  We also made an earth tunnel, that kids can walk through and see roots and bulbs hanging down as well as a rat with her nest.  We have a display of pollinator plants and a “plants of the bible” display.  The first two days of the fair had great weather; I don’t know about the next few days, we sure need the rain though.  I bet there are plenty of places that would trade their fairs for a few inches of rain this year.