If you're one of our blog readers who gets squeamish when we talk about having to deal with the various non-native feral pests around Struan Farm, this isn't a post for you.
There's been a huge mob of feral turkeys roaming around the farm for about three weeks now. We've been hooting them away, hoping they would take off for the neighbour, but no such luck. They've been closing in on my flower gardens at the house, something I've been worried about.
Clifford has ignored them until yesterday, it's been too hot. In the morning I found him staring intently out the backyard gate going into his familiar stalking trance. When he gets into the full hunting mode he's impossible to stop. I looked out in the paddock and saw the turkeys, oh oh. In this instance I patted him on the back and told him to go back toward the house. But Clifford now realised there were turkeys and he was keen. And once he gets these things into his head he doesn't forget about them, he just gets sneaky. But he's blown out ligaments in his back leg twice now chasing them, and I don't think he would survive another round. Action was required.
We'd asked nephew Mike to bring his shotgun to work this past week to try to knock a few off, hoping that would encourage the rest to move on. Mike hadn't managed to find them but he hadn't looked terribly hard either, too many other jobs to do.
Then yesterday morning the mob of 20+ turkeys crossed the line. They jumped the fence into my veggie gardens in the backyard. I was inside but heard clucking noises out the window and looked out, thankfully. Several of the big toms were already foraging through the corn, tomatoes, parsley and sunflowers. I started hooting, shouting, and ran for the backdoor. I scared them away, but they now realised there were tasty veggies and they were keen.
Mike went home for his shotgun. The moral of this story is quite simple: don't mess with Karen's veggie gardens!
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