First Snow of Winter

Another Loss

I lost another hen yesterday. This time it was one of my beloved Silver Laced Wyandottes, Stephie. I'm mad. Stephie and her sister Ruth (named after two dear friends) are my two oldest hens, about five years old. They came from Ontario with me. I'm about ready to buy a gun and shoot the foxes! I've had enough of this shit! I get everything has to eat, but my featherbabies are NOT supper!

Stephie is the lovely hen that posed for the newspaper with me for my book review. Being almost five years old, she was only laying one egg a week, but damn, she was a beloved pet! She was one of my Ontario bitches. She was MINE!  I've gone past sad and am now just pissed! These foxes have started a war and they are NOT going to win! It doesn't help that my dogs are all seniors and seriously suck at taking care of the featherbabies. When I noticed Stephie was missing, I hollered for the dogs to come with me and hunt the forest. The only one to help was Taco! My canine security is now a chihuahua! My big Rottie/shepherd, Skully, doesn't like going outside anymore and I have to pry the pug off the couch! My new dog Ella (St Bernard/malamute), can't get here soon enough! Another 4 weeks to go! She's coming December 26-27. She's 3 years old and very protective and energetic. I need her here so badly! She actually hates being inside, so we love being outside protecting the featherbabies.

On a happier note, here's some cute pics I took yesterday

My silkie babes are getting bigger :)

This is my four Muscovy ladies- from left to right: Pringles, Skittles, Snickerdoodes and Nibs.

I'm still looking for a Turkey tom for Mindy. Since she is my only turkey right now (Gods! I hate those foxes!!!! GRRRRRRRR). she's been hanging with her coop mates, mama chicken Heckle and her babes, Jinxe, Marsh and Mallow. She's super protective of the silkie babes. 

Wishing you all a great day! I'll keep you updated on the fox situation! Hugs and love!

Muscovy Ducks, Scallops and a Melted Spatula.

We are happily back up to five Muscovy ducks! Someone here in Thorbrun, just a 7 minute walk away, had some Muscovy ducks for sale, so of course I bought two! 

Now I have Rocky and Skittles (the two we got early this summer that don't know how to swim and hate the pond. Rocky is my drake), Nibs (the remaining pond Muscovy) and the two new ladies, Snicker Doodles (the brown one) and her mom (no name yet). Snicker Doodles is three weeks older than Nibs and her mom is two years old.

Skittles is a little pissy about the new Muscovys, but she'll be fine by the end of the day. Rocky of course is very happy! He now has four ladies.

Being able to get an experienced mom is a huge score! Muscovys are great moms, but an experienced mom is worth her weight in gold! Now I have someone to hatch Saxony eggs next summer!

If we had to pick just one type of ducks, we would without a doubt pick Muscovys. They are smarter, calmer and have more personality than the other ducks.

I was gifted a bag of scallops earlier in the week. I've actually never had scallops before. Obviously, I've never cooked them before either.. I asked on Facebook and got a crap load of advice on how to cook them. Yesterday, we tried cooking two scallops (as a practice run for supper). We did as directed on Facebook. We used a cast iron frying pan, put in some butter, let it get super hot, put in the scallops, counted off two minutes, flipped them ... and our spatula melted!

I'm told by an executive chief that you should use two forks to flip them. Just don't pierce them! Ooops!

Lesson Learned!

The house filled with toxic smoke. We had to evacuate everyone. Had to carry out the guinea pig cage cause we were worried the smoke would hurt them. Put the guinea pig cage on the driveway, went back inside to get Skully out, came out to see Taco hoisting his leg on the cage! What an asshat1 At least the piggies were in their house and didn't get a golden shower!

Wishing you all a great day! Hugs and love!

Foxes, Ducks, Dogs and a Dead Mole

WARNING: The last photo may be upsetting to some of my gentle friends (it shows a dead mole with his tummy ripped out)

We *think* we have found the predator that killed our featherbabies- FOXES! Not, one fox, but a young adult pair of siblings. This is the time of year that they leave mom and they often hunt in pairs for their first winter.

We found fox scat on the Kappa Trail (the trail that runs along the Kappa Cove, the front pond). We carefully inspected it and found both bones and feather quills in it. Foxes use their scat to mark their territory. They don't hide their poop; they poop on high spots so it is easily seen, usually on top of logs and rocks. This poop was on the ground, but on the high rise of the trail. The little fuckers had claimed the pond for their own! I'm so pissed with myself. This whole horribleness happened cause we allowed them to claim the pond area. We allowed them to move in. Honestly, it's been such a busy summer/fall, we totally slacked on keeping up proper patrols and marking the area around the pond. :(  I haven't walked the dogs very much down there in the last couple of months.What a hard lesson to learn.

This is fox scat

Nibs, the lone Muscovy duckling is doing OK. She was in shock and didn't eat on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, but finally started to nibble yesterday. Today, she ate better and is starting to regain her normal Muscovy bad attitude. 

The pic below is Nibs having a bath in my bathtub. It sure ain't the pond, but it's better than nothing!

I have started a "campaign of Terror: all around the pond and the surrounding forest. My goal to scare away all the wildlife in the area. The safest way to live with wildlife is to have them scared of you. Wild animals should FEAR humans. Any wild animal that doesn't fear humans will end up dead. Did you know that it is illegal for wildlife rehab centers in Nova Scotia to release a wild animal that doesn't fear humans? Yep, it is! They have to euthanize the animal if it is too friendly! An animal that doesn't fear humans will end up hanging around us, and will either hurt us or we'll hurt them. If you love wild animals, you will not feed them or try to make friends with them, you will instead help ensure they fear us. (I'm talking about mammals, not birds)

My "Campaign of Terror" consists of stomping loudly around the forest at random times; having the dogs run around the pond/forest area, peeing and pooing, and disturbing everything; setting off blackcat firecrackers at random times; moving dog poop into the pond area; having men urinate in the woods; and destroying any potential homes. By making the lives of any wildlife in the area miserable, we will hopefully encourage them to move elsewhere. This has been our technique for the last seven years and it has always worked well. Before, this year, we had never lost more than three featherbabies in a year (spread out over several months). If the predator does not move, we will have to trap it and possibly kill it. I hope it leaves! If it doesn't not fear us and leave, it may die. That makes me sad, but I will do what I need to do to protect my flock.

This photo is of my Pug Buddha. We are back in the woods, behind the Foxes' kill spot

This is Skully. Where he is standing is where we found the first turkey feather. The turkey died at the base of the tree behind him.

And of course, my fireball Taco. The tree he is on runs to the pond. We are maybe 50 feet from where we found the dead ducks.

Yesterday, when we were out causing chaos in the forest, the dogs found this poor dead guy/ He's a mole. Dead maybe 2-3 hours. It was about 150 feet from the foxes' food larder (where we found the huge pile of turkey feathers and the three dead duck bodies). Not sure who killed it? It looks like it died from a tooth in the neck and the killer ate it's insides. They thing poking out is it's backbone. Maybe a domestic cat? Weasel/minx? maybe a fox, but I don't think so? 

Wishing you all a great weekend. LOVE AND HUGS!

Broken Heart

WARNING - DISTURBING PHOTOS on this post

Sorry, I didn't update on the missing turkey and chicken yesterday. it was a really bad day.

When I got up yesterday and went to the pond to check on the two Muscovy moms and their two babes, i found three of them missing; the two moms and Licorice, the drake that was stuck to the ice on Monday.

My son and I spent many hours outside yesterday, searching the forest for the missing ducks (and turkey and leghorn chicken).We focused our search near the front pond. I found three Muscovy feathers on the trail near the pond; they look like they belonged to Licorice.

We pushed deeper into the forest and found a turkey feather, we searched around and we found a huge pile of turkey feathers. We gathered up the feathers and went back to the house and compared them to our remaining turkey. sadly, an exact match.

We went back to the spot where we found the turkey feathers and about 50 feet away, we found white downy feathers, some covered in blood, and some black/green pin feathers. Our hearts sunk further, they were our duck Figgy's feathers

We searched further, pushing deeper into the forest, looking up into trees and looking down to see under them. About 100 feet away from the two feather piles, I caught a glimpse of white under a very think group of pine trees. 

We pushed through the pines trees and sadly found the three ducks. They were laid out side by side. Poor Mama Muscovy, my first duck ever, and my very favorite duck, had her chest ripped out and one of her feet ripped off. The other two Figgy and the babe, Licorice had minimal damage.

In addition to the ducks, we found a huge pile of assorted other bird feathers. The ones in the pic below are either owl or hawk. (I picked them all up)

After finding the bodies, we were very upset, so came back to the house.  After we pulled ourselves together we went back and gathered up the bodies (cause screw that! the predator isn't getting them!). They have been buried. 

So, now we gotta figure out who the predator is and then we need to trap it. It may be what killed my two old cats this summer. It needs to go!

If anyone is familiar with predators and has an idea who the culprit is please let me know. I'm thinking fox, but not sure. thanks!

What a Day

I got up today at 7am like I always do. Went outside praying to see the missing turkeys and sadly no Mork. Went down to check the Muscovy ducks at the pond and found the one babe, Licorice was frozen to the ice on the pond, in the middle of the pond! Oh no! Somehow his tail feathers had completely frozen to the ice and he couldn't move. The ice is not very thick, not thick enough to support a human, so sadly we could not walk across it. The best we could do with wade in, breaking the ice in front of us as we went. It was so cold! and such exhausting work! The ice did not break easily. We made it out to the poor duck and broke the ice around him. Unfortunately he ended up losing half his tail :( Poor guy, We grabbed him up and literally with waded back to shore. We wrapped him in a towel and got to the house as quick as possible. After about ten minutes in the house Licorice started to come around and was able to walk again! about ten minutes after that we were able to get him back to his moms. What a scary experience!

We were frozen. We had hot showers and baths, but were still shivering. We got banged and cut up from the ice. I had 10am work which I cancelled as I was so cold and exhausted.

We spent the rest of the morning inside, getting warmed up and working online. I'm working on a new art design. Spent about 3 hours working on it when the hydro flashed off, good-bye art. :( sadly, art programs don't save art the way most writing programs do.

Went out in the afternoon and hunted for the missing turkey. Still can't find a sign of him. No blood, no feathers nothing.

At 5pm, when we went to put the featherbabies away, we were missing one leghorn chicken. Oh no!

I can only surmise that a missing turkey yesterday and a missing hen today means a predator. Both birds tend to hang on the edge of the woods at the back of the house. But what type of predator? It's gotta be something big enough to carry off a turkey and fast enough to get them without any fight.

Tomorrow, we will be out first things hunting for the missing hen and signs of the missing turkey. We gotta act quickly before we lose anymore.

I'm looking into getting a live trap, so I can get a trap down quickly encase it is a predator.

Fingers crossed that both the hen and turkey show up tomorrow!

Help me reason this through

One of my beloved pet turkeys went missing today. I extremely upset. We worked hard to raise him and he was extremely tame. I adored him.

I'm very frustrated and can't figure out where he is, maybe you can help?

Help me reason this through:

Missing turkey (Mork) was here at noon, was noticed gone around 2:30pm. We spent two and a half hours looking and calling for it. We searched all around the house and quite deep into the surrounding forest.We searched around both ponds. We looked up into trees and we searched the ground for signs of a fight, feathers and/or blood. we found nothing.

The turkey is large (about 6 pounds), can fly quite well (up onto roofs and into trees), is strong, quick,and would fight.

The other Turkey (Mindy) was at the front of the house at 2:30. She did not seemed distressed, yet at bedtime she gave us a hard time about going in and was sitting on the porch, watching for her friend looking quite sad. The two turkeys are rarely far apart. It seems extremely strange that one would wander off without the other.

There is no sign of a predator anywhere. No blood, no feathers, nothing. The roosters did not sound the alarm today (we have three roosters that do a good job watching for predators), Skully did not growl (which he always does when coyotes are near); the little dogs did not bark, the ducks were around the house all day (cause the pond has ice) and they were calm. Heck, the cats were calm all day. No one gave a predator alert.

Google says that female turkeys will occasionally run off with wild turkeys. Travis thinks he heard wild turkeys in the area 4-5 days ago. We are still not sure what sex Mork is. maybe he's a she. But, why would one run off and not the other? And I would assume females run off to get males, wouldn't they do that at sexual maturity? Mork is only 4 months old; he/she won't be sexually mature than spring.

Mork is pretty big. A fisher couldn't carry him off. We would of found feathers/blood. A fox? maybe, but wouldn't he go after a chicken instead? Turkeys are pretty big. There was 25 chickens (4 chicks) and 11 ducks hanging out in the same area as the turkeys. Bald eagle? possible, but no rooster warning? My rooster always crow when eagles circle.Bald Eagle would of taken the turkey in a clearing (not under the trees), where is the feathers and blood? Coyote? maybe? But, Skully didn't growl? Really?! and the roosters didn't notice? and Mork went down without a fight? I find it really hard to believe that this turkey would of went down without a fight. There is a bobcat in the area ... broad daylight, close to a house?

Maybe he wandered off and got lost? It's possible. But, why didn't he come when called? And why'd he wander off without his turkey friend? The turkeys generally stay very close to the house, usually close to the mama chicken and chicks (they are all coop mates).

Maybe he was sick and we didn't notice, and he wandered off to die the way animals do? He seemed extremely healthy. Growing well, eating well, his bathrooms were normal, eyes bright, etc etc. maybe we just missed his body under all the branches and leaves?

Maybe a predator got him and we just missed the fight scene? We will continue searching for signs tomorrow. I'm gonna split the forest into sections and carefully search each section.

I really need to know what happened. I lost two beloved cats back in July that just mysteriously disappeared. no sign of either of them. I just can't lose another critter with no explanation! If there is a large predator on the property like a bobcat, I need to know. There is a black bear on the property, but black bears generally don't kill other animals.

If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them!

I'll update you tomorrow if he shows up or a find anything while searching.

Ducks

Ella

A friend in SW Ontario, near Chatham, recently took in a St Bernard/Malamute. Unfortunately, my friend just had two knee surgeries and simply cannot keep up to her exercise needs. Rehoming a dog this size is not easy. We would love to get the dog here to me, but sadly that's not easy as I'm three provinces away. Betty has started a go-fund me to help raise some money to pay for transport costs. If you can pitch in a bit it would be greatly appreciated. Ella has already been rehomed a couple of times and deserves a forever home. Thanks!!

https://www.gofundme.com/x75p7n-get-ella-to-her-forever-home