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.