Predators on the farm are why we designed the goat barn to be a virtually impenetrable fortress, both inside, and outįencing our property isn’t practical due to the numerous elevation changes, which amount to a greater than 400 ft elevation change across the property. I found the remains of someone’s meal from earlier this winter, which looked to be a dis-articulated squirrel skeleton. She just seemed to have completely disappeared. I saw no evidence that the carcass had been dragged, no feather trail, no blood trail. I walked along the bank above this culvert and didn’t see any sign of the hen. One corridor is a very long drainage culvert that parallels the house, right at the valley bottom. Living here I’ve become familiar with some of the corridors through the property that the wildlife use, especially the Bobcats, and Coyotes. Having watched a Bobcat struggle to carry off a 7 lb pullet, I was having a difficult time envisioning a Bobcat as the culprit. Coyotes would likely have left even more of a mess. I thought the only predator here that would be capable of carrying off a whole 15-20lb turkey hen would be a Mountain Lion. I expected to find a carcass, but my preliminary search yielded nothing. There was now no question this hen was dead. This blood streak was across at least an 18 inch stretch of soil, and the feathers were scattered all over the yard. She was then left, at least for a while, to bleed out On the right, it’s clear this is where the hen was killed, as the surface of the rocks are covered in blood. They were everywhere…stretching from one side of the poultry yard, to the other. I thought maybe she was up behind the turkey pen, so I walked out to the poultry yard, and immediately noticed feathers on the ground. The next morning I could see from the kitchen window that one hen at least had found her way inside a new goat enclosure that we were building, where the door had been left partially open. **** note, some images below are graphic, and not to everyone’s taste, but this is part of the reality of farming here**** I knew all too well what the risks of leaving them out in the open would be, but I hoped they’d find a sheltered tall redwood, or oak, to roost in for the night, as we have no shortage of tall trees here, and I’d check on them first thing in the morning. I tried until after dark to get the hens in the pen, but after finding myself face down in the dirt on the slope a few times, and realizing that all I was succeeding in doing was chasing them further up the hill, I reluctantly gave up.
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