The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

Today is the day of the birds. When I got up this morning I noticed two of our baby turkeys frantically pacing along the front of their cage. I went out to check on them and found our friend the Great Horned Owl in their pen. It killed 26 of our 28 turkeys. So much for filling the freezer with turkeys this fall!

Phil called the DNR who put him in touch with Wildlife Management. Phil told them that he was not turning it loose again like we did last time. This owl has done too much damage on our farm to just let it go free again. They sent out a game warden who we thought would take it away, but instead, he shot the owl. He told us to contact the USDA to file for damages which we did only to discover that since the Great Horned Owl is only protected and not endangered they are not able to give us any type of compensation for the loss of birds. UGH!

On a happier note we butchered our meat birds this morning with some friends of ours. We did 200 birds in 4 hours. Only 23 of the birds were ours. Tonight I put 12 in the freezer and will package up and freeze the other 11 tomorrow afternoon. We'll be ordering more meat birds in a couple weeks to raise for butchering in September.