clipping wings

When we left to go to the grocery yesterday morning we noticed our turkeys and guineas a 1/4 mile up the road, walking in the road.  We stopped and were going to shoo them home but they took off like wild turkeys into the weeds.  We couldn’t even see them and one of them is white!  That made me realize it was time to try and pen them up again or we wouldn’t be having turkey for Thanksgiving.

 That evening they were waiting by the door for their bread treat and I made them follow me to the barn.  I put a little down and went and closed the back barn door, then tossed more bread into the barn and when they went in, shut them in.  I managed to get momma separated into a back stall, then caught her and clipped both wings. I took a chance that the young ones would stay with her and not jump the fence if their wings weren’t trimmed.  I then shooed all of them out the back barn door directly into the pen where the other turkeys and ducks are. 

 Momma turkey was quite upset.  She kept looking at and preening her wings.  Since she has had that done in the past I think she actually knew that she was now ( hopefully) trapped.  The youngsters were pretty much tired and ready for bed after they ate and jumped up on a fence rail to sleep.  She was wandering around making calling noises when I left for the evening.

 I expected to come out this am and find them all out in the front yard again but they were still there in the turkey-duck run.   After I fed them they wandered out to the back side of the pond to eat autumn olive berries.  Our other turkeys don’t seem to wander too much although there is about an acre fenced around the pond they could roam in.  They stay up close to the barn in the 20 x 40 smaller fenced area.  We leave the gate to the pond pasture open most of the time, which gives them the much larger area if they want to wander. 

 A great deal of the pond pasture area is fenced with 5 foot fence.  It doesn’t have a top rail, which makes it harder for turkeys to get over.  The smaller run area is 4 foot fence with a top rail on the west and north side, where the hen turkeys generally roost when the weather is nice.  The toms are too heavy to roost.  There is only a 3 foot tall fence separating the turkeys from the chickens.  If the momma or young ones jump that then the outer fence of the chicken run has a rail all around it that makes it easier for them to jump up and over and get into the yard.  So far the young turkeys have sat on the rail but since mom was grounded they didn’t go over, they got back down on the pen side.

 I believe the young turkeys are two toms and a hen.  We want to eat the white tom for Thanksgiving, he is getting big fast.  The other tom is bourbon red and what I think is a hen is bronze.  The other younger baby turkey is a bourbon red, but too young to sex.  It was not too happy with new turkeys arriving in its territory and challenged them a bit, which they just ignored.  I would sell any of the young ones, even the white one, if the price was right.

My toms were happy to see the bronze hen returned to the flock.  They put on a big display for her.  The two bourbon red hens are both molting and have no tail feathers right now.  The bronze hen looks so much nicer than them.  I don’t know if it was because she had a very varied diet and lots of cat food from the barn or if she molted early.  I hope she molted because that will mean the wing trimming job will last longer.

The guineas are a little lost without their turkey friends to run around with.  Maybe they will stay home now too and quit bothering the neighbors.  They were in the chicken run this am but I saw them back out in the front yard later.  I don’t know how to even trap those two.  And I am not worried if they disappear.

Comings and goings

I sent Steve off to the market this morning with chickens and ducklings; I need to reduce the number of mouths we are feeding.  We have 21 ducklings and more on the way.  And I had way more chickens than I needed.  Since the young hens are starting to lay I sent 5 older ones off to market along with the oldest big rooster and 2 banty roosters, and 4 half grown frizzle chicks.  I managed to catch 6 ducklings to send also. 

Steve likes to do the market part, sitting outside the stockyard with the tailgate down talking to all the old guys.  I am not so hot on that.  I spent an hour this morning just catching birds.  I went out last night after dark and shut the coop door on the chickens but it was still a lot of work chasing them from one end of the coop to the other just to get the ones I sent.  Even the ducklings were hard to catch.  I thought I would just throw some bread down and be able to catch them but they must have heard me catching the chickens and were real wary.

A few days ago someone stopped when Steve was outside and asked him if he could buy the guineas and a turkey or 2.  He is supposed to come back today but I don’t know if I am going to be able to catch those guineas easily, although I am willing to sell them.  I am also willing to sell all the young turkeys except the white tom, which I think will be our Thanksgiving meal.  The problem is the turkeys and guineas roost outside and no- you can’t catch them in the dark with a flashlight- at least after you catch the first one.  Darkness doesn’t make them as frozen as it does chickens; they fly off in the dark and are gone.  They do go in the barn to eat from their dish and my best bet would be to trap them in there, but it will be when there is an opportunity not necessarily when someone wants them.

 We had more silkie/frizzle chicks hatch yesterday, I don’t know how many and two more little hens are sitting.  I have two ducks sitting still.  No matter what we sell the population keeps on rising.  I do know that I will be collecting all the silky/frizzle eggs after this last bunch hatches until about next March.  And no more duck nests either.  The only thing I would possible allow to reproduce would be the porcelain banties.

 The granddaughters were up here yesterday.  They got to hold baby ducks and see a newly hatched silky chick.  They helped me feed last night.  And we had a good supper.  I hope I gave them some good memories for the day since they were going home to some unpleasant happenings.  Their other grandmother, who lives with them, had passed away just before they left and they didn’t know it yet.  Their mom found her in bed- it was unexpected- just before they were to leave and she told my son to go on ahead with the girls who were eager to get up here to see us.  All the police and medical examiner stuff were done and the body removed to a funeral home by the time the girls left here.  Sad, for my poor daughter in law but probably the best way for the girls.

I guess that’s what life is about, the comings and the goings.

As the kittens play

It’s a beautiful cool and windy day in Michigan today, only 68 degrees.  Last night we received much needed rain, almost 2 inches of it.  Of course it was on a night when we had a yard sale set up outside.  We moved the clothing into the car last night and covered everything else but it was a soggy mess this morning.  Still my plants are very happy this morning and I’m happy for them.

 We had 9 baby ducklings hatch last week.  I moved them into a pen outside for a couple weeks with their mamma.  She hatched them in the chicken coop but the kittens were way too interested in them and they had access to the coop. The pen is in the outside area reserved for ducks and turkeys and eventually mama duck will be able to take her brood to the pond.

 The pen has a blue tarp over it for a top.  The kittens follow me around everywhere even though most of them don’t want me to touch them.  After I feed all of the birds I usually sit down outside the barn to observe things for a few minutes.  The kittens have begun to use the top of the pen as a big stage for them to perform huge elaborate skits for me.  They run across the tarp, they wrestle, they skitter through the dry leaves collecting on top, they chase their tails and pounce on flies.  They climb the fence next to the pen and leap down onto the tarp top.

Poor mama duck underneath all this activity keeps cocking her head warily at the tarp above her head, probably wondering just what the heck is happening.  The baby ducks no longer seem bothered by it, its normal for them.  But I soon feel sorry for her and go somewhere else so the little cat brats will follow me.

 There are seven kittens left from 2 mama cats, neither of which I have seen in several days.  That’s ok because the kittens are about 3 months old.   One of our other old barn cat females died this week and I am beginning to wonder if the older cats aren’t roaming somewhere and someone is poisoning or harming them.   This old white cat that died had distemper some time ago, the only survivor 2 years ago when distemper swept through here and killed all the other cats.  For a while there was only her around then a momma cat moved in last fall and had 5 kittens in a groundhog hole under our propane tank.  She has since disappeared and now all the original 5 kittens are gone too, if the two females who had this batch of kittens are truly gone.

 It’s strange since all of the kittens here appear healthy so I don’t think a disease is the cause.  The momma cat that came here last fall was a terrific hunter and really cleaned up on the population of mice and rats.  The two daughters that had this current crop of kittens were also great hunters.  I hope they had enough time to teach these babies well.   I didn’t like it when they hide under the ramp in the front to catch birds at the feeder but we did like it that the mouse/rat/ mole/ rabbit population had dropped.

 As my husband says seven cats are enough to feed so I shouldn’t worry about it.  I think 4 are males and 3 are females in this batch so we have plenty of cats to carry on for a while.  One gray male and a little golden striped female are pretty friendly and allow me to pick them up but the rest only want me to feed them and watch them play.   They meet me at the door at feeding time.  Barn cats are a whole different breed from house cats in many ways.  Our dogs don’t play well with cats so we have barn cats.