Bird talk

I brought in some of the inner leaves of ornamental kale, curly purple and white leaves, for the canaries in place of the usual chickweed.  As a bonus there was a tiny cabbage worm on one piece.  It went in the cage with the younger male, whose hen is still sitting on a nest, although she hasn’t hatched anything all year.  He appeared interested but a little frightened of the worm.  The hen finally came off the nest and picked at the kale but I guess canaries as seed eating birds don’t appreciate worms. 

It took the hen canaries only a minute to realize the odd colored plants were edible but the males didn’t seem interested.  Females are smarter after all.  Kale is a little tougher than chickweed and they had to hold it down with a foot to tear at it but they knew what to do.

 Last night I sold off all of the young ducks that were left, 19 of them.  Over the last week we sold all 30 young ones.  The feed bill was getting huge-80 pounds of pellets a week between the turkeys and ducks.  We are now down to a more manageable number 6 adult ducks and 5 breeder turkeys and 1 meat turkey.  Last year we butchered the leftover babies and I got a good price for the meat but this year they were not going to mature enough before the processors quit for the season. 

I have learned a lesson, cut off the hatching of ducks by mid-summer.  We had a late start because something was eating eggs in the spring but the late summer and fall duck bounty was not a money maker, that’s for sure.  Turkeys could hatch anytime and be sold for a good price, at least the heritage ones but not ducks.

 Speaking of turkeys I may not get my white tom butchered before Thanksgiving.  I called my usual meat processor at the end of September and she was already booked for Thanksgiving week.  So far no luck with a processor.  Steve said we could do it ourselves but I said no.  I can’t eat the ones we butcher until they have been frozen for a while and I have forgotten the whole smelly process.  I guess I am not as good a live off the land person as I would like to be.  We can get him butchered after Thanksgiving and have him for Christmas.   I do hate the thought that I raised these heritage turkeys all summer and I am not having one for Thanksgiving.  I hope we are able to raise more of them next season so we can sell breeding stock and have some left to eat.

We are hoping for some dry, warmer weather this weekend so that we can get some more winterizing projects done.  We need to repair part of the tarp roof over the chicken run after the high winds last week and cover the small coop run with plastic.   The mower needs to be run over to the old horse shelter for the winter and I need to put away some cages and other things so they are out of the way for the winter.  And I still have daffodil bulbs to plant.

 Winter is almost here and I dread it.  I hope we have a mild one like last year but not quite as warm, as that didn’t work well with the fruit crops.  Just above freezing in the day so the hose will run is fine and sunny would be really great.  We have had a long stretch of cloudy or overcast days and it gets very depressing. 

This morning it is foggy but I am hoping the SW wind will clear it off.   The pond is up a little, less evaporation, trees have quit drawing up water and we have had a little rain.   But I know that snow would be beneficial for the pond and the environment so I will try not to be too unhappy when it falls next week as they are predicting.  I am going to try and leave the birds free ranging longer this year, instead of closing up the barn with them inside.  Unless the snow is deep and it’s really cold they might benefit from being outside more.

 

I could see the neighbor’s house through the woods this morning.  That really tells me winter is here.