O Death!

[Editor’s note: click here and listen to Dock Boggs as a backdrop to this seasonal real-life horror story.]

This time of year as the days grow shorter, the corn drier, the leaves brighter and the nights crisper, many farmers’ thoughts turn to harvest. My thoughts, especially after visiting Lowe’s and seeing their startling display of seven-foot ghouls and witches, turns to Halloween.

Farm life is as much about farm death as anything else. It’s hard to get used to. We raise animals for meat, so there’s the cycle of growing, feeding, and tending animals that we butcher. As difficult as that is, it is still rather predictable–it’s what’s supposed to happen on a farm. What I wasn’t expecting is how many animals in our care die for no reason at all. Or worse yet, die because we’re not doing something right. This is the hardest lesson we’ve learned about small-scale farming, and while it is inevitable, it is hands-down the worst part of what we do.

Let’s talk about turkeys. This year we’ve had such bad luck with turkeys that our diminished flock won’t support one of our farm’s most popular events, a butchering workshop where we lead our guests through the process of taking their Thanksgiving dinner from a big white bird on the ground to a neatly packaged oven-stuffer.

Small-scale farmers we know who raise pasture-based turkeys generally quit trying after a few years, and we look to be on the same path. “Turkeys just find an excuse to die,” said a friend whose butchering equipment we borrow. One local farm I talked to is buying turkeys from another grower to fulfill their Thanksgiving orders. At least we’re not alone in our experience of turkey die-off! Another fellow farmer offered the folk wisdom that the only thing stupider than a turkey is the person trying to raise one.

Which brings me to Chuck and Cami, our Royal Palm turkeys. If raising commercial-grade turkeys in houses for meat produces such dismal results, what about a small, free-range flock of heritage turkeys for pleasure? I set out to discover if free-range birds might fare better.

The glorious birds arrived on our farm last fall right around the time that Queen Elizabeth had died, and people were thinking about Charles and Camilla as the new official British royalty. Thus the names for our royal pair.

The two love birds, as well as a juvenile tom, Cami’s half-brother, made it through the winter, free-ranging around the farm and sleeping in the barn. Early spring, when it was still below freezing at night, lovely pink speckled eggs began to appear in the loose corn fodder in the back of the barn. I took them to incubate. Cami kept trying to sit on the nest, and would hiss at me when I took her eggs.

Then one day she was gone, along with the juvenile bird. Only Chuck remained, strutting over a kingdom of chickens. I gave the hen up for lost and contacted the neighbors, warning them that a dog or a fox was raiding poultry right out of our barn at night!

I treasured the stolen eggs in the incubator, knowing it was my only chance to continue the turkey line. Alas, having entered the chilly world too early in the season, the eggs were mostly rotten; only five hatched and of those only three survived. I moved the fragile chicks to a stock tank under heat lamps.

And a few days later when I walked up to the barn in the morning, there was Cami! She and Chuck were giggling at each other as if nothing had happened. The juvenile tom was not with her. It took me a bit to piece together what happened. After her nest in the barn was raided repeatedly (by me), she must have gone to find a safer place to start a new clutch. She didn’t return with any little peeps, or with her brother Tom, so disaster must have befallen the runaways at some juncture.

I was hoping she might lay another clutch of eggs, but she seemed content just to wander in the corn field and look for bugs with Chuck.

When she disappeared again in June, I suspected she might be working on a second nest. The grass under the walnut trees was waist high, seed heads exploding like tiny fireworks. It was perfect cover for once-wild birds. I kept an eye on the grasses it to see if they were moving, but if Cami was in there she didn’t leave a trace.

I almost stepped on the nest as I walked from the water hydrant to the broiler hutch–it was at the foot of a walnut tree right in the middle of our daily activity!

The nest grew to 24 gorgeous eggs, more than she could cover with her body. I thought I should take some away and put them under a broody hen or incubate them. Wouldn’t some of the eggs be developing while others were fresh? How would I know which was which? Normally birds don’t continue laying once they have become broody, but maybe she was still figuring out how to do things. In the end, I decided to let her just do her thing.

Then it was July, and we were leaving for a week at the beach. I hired two high school kids to live in our cabin and look after the house animals and the livestock while we were away. I said that may or may not include baby turkeys.

And sure enough, the day before we left, two little fluff balls peeked out from Mama’s feathers!

We left for our beach vacation, which included a celebration of my “double-nickle” birthday. The day before our return, I got this sad message from our care-taker: “As of 1-2 days ago the male turkey and all three chicks are missing, there are also turkey feathers as in signs of distress/fight. So the chances are looking slim.”

When we got back I was confused–there was still a turkey sitting on the nest. I had expected it to be raided and empty. Feathers were scattered everywhere. I looked closely at the lone survivor. Something wasn’t quite right. It didn’t look like Cami. There was too much coloring around her head. Was she injured? She was also enormous, much bigger than I had remembered.

It was Chuck. Chuck was sitting there on the next, six salvaged eggs tucked away under his feathers. Chuck sat there for days, wings down, head down, dark eyes challenging anyone who came near. He was so brooding and intimidating I forgot to take a photo.

I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO! This was the most unusual thing I’d seen on the farm–a full grown, male turkey, sitting on the nest of his beloved. Trying to coax life out of six eggs that survived whatever animal raided the nest and took the chicks and hen. I wanted to weep, watching him keep his hopeless vigil under the walnut tree. And I wanted to kick myself for putting him in this predicament.

Why hadn’t I protected the nest? Why hadn’t I strung electric netting around the tree? I had trusted that our Magnificent Great Pyrenees Livestock Guardian Dog Luna would deter any predators. Her food bowl was only a few yards away. But there was a five-strand electric fence between the turkey nest and the pasture where Luna worked, guarding our goat mamas. She must have been barking her head off the night the of the raid. Why didn’t she break through the fence–or jump over it? But Luna was well-trained; she was very respectful of the fence, and never challenged it. Even her fierce presence, just moments away from the scene of carnage, wasn’t deterrent enough.

I knew I should take the eggs away from Chuck and encourage him back into the safety of the barn. But I just couldn’t do it. First, I was a little scared of him, and second, maybe there was a chance?

And then the next morning when I made my rounds he was gone. The eggs were gone. There were only feathers. And then a few feet away, more feathers. And then a ways down the gravel lane, another pile of feathers.

And that was all.

O Death! Won’t you spare me over for another year?