Something To Bring A Smile

Ha ha, mother nature always finds a way! Do turkeys like veggies?

at least you'll have a filling thanksgiving...


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

my workplace, had a huge window that i faced. and down the block there was a turkey farm of some kind (though i never did figure out where exactly). and now and then a few would escape and just wander around back there. sometimes a fox or some other odd thing to distract us all.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Peggy, they like my strawberries and 12 blueberry bushes. Zucchini, I doubt. :)

John,

In a business meeting last week the person bringing us together brought in turkey salad. He shot the turkey wild in the field. Best salad you could imagine.

Not at all gamey.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Aha, so they're fruitarians! (I wonder if they'd like zucchini cake?)

Wonder if mesh over the fences would be worth the trouble(?). And you would have to move it every time you went in. Sigh.

Hi John,

I remember my Grandfather buying toy snakes and putting them in the blueberry bushes. It kept the birds away, not sure about turkeys, though...they seem to not fear much. A while back here in Rhode Island there was a story about wild turkeys congregating at one of the town halls that was in a very busy intersection. Someone caught a pic of a turkey looking in through the window of the mayor's office. It was very tough to move them along to a more appropriate habitat I remember. I'm smiling and laughing thinking back to a wood chuck that was eating everything in our garden years ago. We got one of those have a heart traps and took him at least 6 miles away to a wooded area.....I really think he found his way back unless it was his mate we missed. Good luck!

Laurie

Laurie, that is a great idea! I'm going to go order some rubber snakes today. It might work with squirrels and chipmunks, too. :) Thank you!

Mary - we bought a huge roll of chicken wire for that very purpose. Like you said, though, bending down to get to the garden is bad enough but the tomato and blueberry bushes will all grow taller than the fence anyway. I'm gonna try the snakes. :)

Just saw a brood of wild turkey's outside my window a few minutes ago....first sighting this year....I love when one grownup is followed by about 15 babies!

Owls, big, plastic owls...

Well, they can provide you with some entertainment but no, eating your fruit is not a good thing. Good luck with them. Perhaps those rubber snakes are a good idea!

We have a couple of foxes in our neighborhood that stroll about the streets and our yards on occasion... it's always a treat when we get to see one, but the ground squirrels are another story - as they have destroyed by once beautiful flowerbed. Would sure like them to move out of my yard.

David - the folks who put in our fence hunt turkeys here every year. They said sometimes the breast is a little gamey but for the most part, the turkeys are very good and not gamey at all. I get scores of them in my yard all year. One carefully set snare and bingo! Thanksgiving! (No guns required).

Rose - we had a hen hatch a bunch of babies in our yard last year. We called them "turklets" and enjoyed watching them. Now and then, their numbers would drop by one... I suspect bobcats, foxes, and/or coyotes but my trail camera never caught anything.

I got the rubber snakes yesterday. Four of them. The squirrels, turkeys, crows, and chipmunks act as if they aren't even there. No effect at all. LOL. Critters 3, John 0.

John,

They are have been a better sense of smell than we do. Rubber stinks even to us.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Oh, I'm sorry the snakes did not work, John.....maybe when I was a child in the 60's the smell of rubber was not so prominent or these animals like most creatures here learn to mutate and adapt and are no longer outsmarted by the rubber snakes. LOL ...I don't remember smelling rubber them when I was a child, in fact I didn't get too close because I thought they were real at first until my Grandfather told me what he was doing. Maybe try the owls next like @Floyd mentioned?

John, maybe this could be a new project for you...create a paper mache snake and paint it realistically. ??

I agree with Floyd - Great Horned Owl statues - maybe ones that have swiveling heads and orange glowing eyes !

Our cats are mesmerized by the wild turkeys - and have certainly learned to respect them when they are out with their young .
The older siblings are the babysitters btw - while the moms go back out to play.

A few years back I saw my cat stalking them and thought that " this will not end well." A while later I saw the turkeys in formation following my cat around - apparently they appreciate a leader.

Maybe some old scratched CD discs ? They are shiny and distracting and are supposed to keep critters out.

My gardens are overrun by generations of wild turkeys that have become very tame. They co-exist peacefully with my cats and dogs, who seem to think turkeys are just members of our family. Turkeys don't eat the plants - they dig them up and send them flying as they scratch through the mulch looking for food, or they bury them as they shift piles of mulch. Whenever I dig a new garden bed, they congregate to take dirt baths in the soft soil so I have to re-dig and rake smooth.
https://kathleen-bishop.pixels.com/featured/wild-mama-turkey-in-the-garden-kathleen-bishop.html

When I finally get around to planting the new beds, I have to jam thick, ugly sticks and branches all over between plants to keep the turkeys from walking in to dig and take dirt baths. Looks awful! Wild turkeys have destroyed many choice plants but I have a thing about not harassing wildlife so there's not much I can do, though I have raked mulch away in some beds and that seems to deter them because there's nothing there for them to scratch through. Established gardens where the soil is no longer loose on top, and where there's no mulch, are less appealing to them.

You nailed it, Kathleen. My acres in the woods have been certified as a wildlife habitat so I, too, leave the critters undisturbed. I saw my first black bears of the year yesterday - a mama and a yearling. A possum regular trudges through the yard and raccoons come out at night. I love my animals; maybe my garden will just feed them. What the heck, huh?

Janine, Floyd, and Laurie - I am going to get owls for the fence. That may protect the garden. I don't want to scare away my critters from my woods, but if I can keep them out of the garden, it might be nice. If not, well, lesson learned. I won't have a garden in 2022 as I will be traveling 100+ days all over the world to make up for canceled trips in 2020 and 2021.

Peggy, I am terrible with projects like that. I love the idea but I shudder at the thought of what I would end up with! LOL