Bye Bye Birdies

I sold some turkeys and ducklings today, enough to buy feed for a couple weeks, which is good because keeping all these birds is an expensive hobby.  Our feed bill runs about $100 a month, which is too much.  Selling birds also means fewer mouths to eat feed.  I sold 2 of the older young turkeys and the little one and 6 ducklings.  Last night I tricked the two older turkeys into the barn with bread and shut them in.  I didn’t think I could catch the little one because it wouldn’t go inside but this morning I was able to corner it outside when I fed.  It had never been caught before and wasn’t too experienced in ducking me. 

 The ladies that came to buy the turkeys wanted to look at the ducks and decided to buy some.  Their little boy wanted a black and white one but they picked out the rest of them that were lighter colored- because they don’t like dark pinfeathers in their meat.  The momma ducks were not very happy and neither were the momma turkeys.   It’s kind of sad but you sure can’t keep them all. 

 We kept the white turkey for our Thanksgiving meal.  The women were getting the turkeys for eating this winter and I admire the fact that they choose to pay for free range heritage turkeys instead of broad breasted turkeys.  I hope we can raise more turkeys next year.  People are recognizing the value of them.

 The hen turkeys are just coming out of molt and I hope they don’t nest again this year.  I am ready to be done with babies for a while.  We still have two duck clutches to hatch and one more clutch of frizzle chicks.  The tiny frizzle chicks we have are getting out of the pen and yesterday I was lucky to save one from the cats.  They were a little unsure about catching it - I think they recognized it as a chicken but that tiny thing whizzing around was too much to resist. 

 Baby chicks shrill peeping when they are unhappy bothers me as much as it does the hens.  The little chicks can’t get in and out the coop door well yet and that makes them unhappy when mom goes outside.  Some get out; some are left behind and start peeping.  Mom comes back because they are peeping and the outside chicks have trouble getting back in and they start peeping.  And I go nuts from the peeping.  Good thing I don’t have to be around all the time.

 The cats have been catching frogs lately.  I think they are getting them down around the pond.  It’s so dried up I hate to look at it.  At least we have a little water left in it.  But if we have a cold winter it may freeze solid which means any fish that are there will be gone.   I don’t like snow but I guess we need it this winter- or at least rain.  Our wettest month is supposed to be September but we sure didn’t get much rain.