Tomorrow we are butchering Jonathan's 33 turkeys. I'm thankful the weather will be around 60 degrees, instead of the 50 degree weather we had the last time we butchered chickens. 
I've been concerned lately with how the coyotes have been acting around here. One night last week it sounded like there was at least one coyote near the laying hen and turkey pens (they are shut up for the night in enclosed pens, which are in turn surrounded by electrified poultry netting). Jim and Jonathan drove out there but it was gone before they arrived at the pens.
Even in broad daylight the coyotes have been very active. I don't know if the beautiful Indian summer we are having has caused them to be so bold, but I'll be glad to have the turkeys in the freezer and the laying hens closer to home in a shelter Jonathan is constructing.
5 comments:
I like the new look, Lynn. I hope the coyotes clear out!!
It is nice to have those things taken care of. We, too, have been enjoying the weather. It has been great to get the fall things finished before winter.
Lynn,
Coyotes have been bad here this year. Our friend with the sheep ranch has lost more sheep to coyotes this year than in all of the previous 15 yrs combined. They've had a state trapper in and trapped 5 and then they've shot 4 more and yet they still are coming. They are brazen and come right down into the barn yard and she has two very agressive llamas and still two nights ago a lamb was killed, not eaten, just killed. We've even had them cross the river( it's so low right now) and sounds as if they are right out in our front pasture but as you said by the time you get out there they're gone.
We'll be butchering our 7 turkeys and the rest of our fryer hens and some soup hens as well, this weekend :o) I too will be glad to have it done the ones sold picked up and far less to have to feed( they were beginning to eat us out of house and home*wink*, not really but they are eating a lot! LOL!!!!
Blessings to you and your family,
Kelle
Thanks for your comments.
Our neighbor that did our haying said he was out later at night this year doing the haying since he was so far behind from all the rain we had. He told us he has never seen so many coyotes out and about after dark. They certainly make a lot of noise at night, and our dog will either bark or join in the howling. Then I start wondering how the turkeys and laying hens are doing, and it makes for a very long night.
I saw one in broad daylight across our driveway watching me not 40 feet away - I thought it was our dog Becky watching me, but looked down and there was Becky. Isabelle chased it more than a mile away (that's when I lost sight of her).
Where is Sampson in all this! GS are usually phenomenal guard dogs. You maybe need a livestock guardian dog - if you could see our Isabelle work you would be sold on a LGD! She is so aggressive all night long that during the day she often collapses and the coyotes are horribly active so that she doesn't stop circling the property, barking, hackles up. She is so protective that one of our cats wandered off the property and she refused to let it back on - she would chase it to the perimeter over and over and it took me a month to realize it, so I walked over, picked him up at the fenceline and then brought him home. LOL
Heather
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