ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

..the turkeys are revolting plus other mixed news from the birds

MISSING: After a ruck with the geese

 ELVIS, the little quail who found a home in my handbag and a way into the hearts of folk in a Jedburgh post office queue, has disappeared without trace. I left him basking in the sunshine with food and water by the back door while I went to find a book before joining him. After a few minutes I heard an almighty racket from the geese and dashed outside to be confonted

WAITING GAME: broody turkey's patience

could soon pay off

with an upturned miniature water bowl as the gander Jack scoffed the last remnants of Elivis's corn.  The quail had scarpered and has been Missing In Action ever since despite exhaustive searches of the immediate area. Jack, a bully by nature, was looking a little coy although totally unmoved by my distress.
 This now means two of my birds are MIA - a turkey went wandering off nearly two months ago and hasn't been seen since. I keep hoping she'll reappear with a clutch of little ones but that over optimistic view is fast fading with each day.
 Meanwhile the broody turkey who has been sitting on everyone else's eggs for the last two months may finally become a mum in her own right ... well, sort of. A good friend of mine who was touched by her plight brought six fertile turkey eggs for her to sit on and they're due to hatch next week. I forget what breed they are but it is quite clear she will not budge until she has hatched some chicks.
 The only other way of getting a turkey or hen out of its broody mood is by plunging the creature in a bucket of cold water and, as inconvenient as broody poultry can be at times, there's no way I'm going to do that.

MADGE: Playing the waiting game

 On the hen front, another of my Scots Dumpys has turned broody and she's sitting on seven eggs though I confess I slipped in a quail's egg to see if it will hatch. I've moved Madge - one of the Isle of Wight hens - into her own box where she won't be bothered by the others although I do try and make her exercise and walk around for atleast 10 minutes a day.

SAD DAY AT THE DOVECOT: Three fantails

remain

 Scots Dumpy eggs are notoriously difficult to hatch because of a lethal gene which means a high number will fail to develop after a few days. But I'm hopeful we'll see some of Madge's offspring later this month.
 In the meantime I've some upsetting news from the Dovecot where my four fantails have been residing. One was found dead this morning inside with no apparent injuries or signs of distress. Another death, another mystery but the other three seem fit and well. The nets are off now and they seem happy with their new home.
 And there's more grief on the turkey front - Ant & Dec, previously joined at the hip are no longer BFF. War has broken out and the pair are inconsolable; they've had their squabbles before and I've been known to wade in and separate the two but this time the rivalry has overtaken their friendship.
 No longer can their turkey gobbles be heard in unison - instead I've had to put them in different pens after the last fight drew blood on both sides. As you can see from the video to the left a truce is unlikely which, because of practicalities, leaves us with no other choice than to to make a choice between the two.
 He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is can sort out that problem for me and may be my mum will get a halal turkey on her next visit.

I hope that doesn't sound callous but it's been nearly two years now since I moved to the Scottish Borders and in that time making unpleasant decisions has become just one of the harsh realities of countryside life. As usual any advice is most welcome.

WARNING: BARBARIAN AT WORK

.. Or bringing a touch of Algeria to the Borders

  MY husband is a Barbarian. No, he really IS a Barbarian. Born in some remote mountain village in the Berber region of Algeria, he often talks with a great fondness about his birthplace and the centuries-old traditions which have come to define the people who live there.

DANGER: Barbarian at work

 So when we moved to the Borders he said he would feel quite at home and put into practice some of the ways of his village. This actually filled me with dread in case he was expecting me to get up at 5am every day, milk a herd of goats, make a round of cheese and bake a dozen loaves of bread while collecting the wood, lighting the fires and getting the breakfast ready for the man of the house ... and all before 8am. That's what he reckons Algerian women in his village do, anyway.
 For the past few days he has disappeared off into the wood and apart from the noise of the chainsaw, tree branches snapping and other timber-like sounds I've not bothered to find out exactly what he's been up to focussing more instead on becoming a bee keeper. It's still some weeks away before I get my first colony but I want to make sure I am well prepared for the new arrivals.

  FOX-proof fence                       

 So imagine my surprise today when I went to see for myself what was occupying hubby's time. It turns out he has been building a fox-proof barrier to protect the turkeys, should they want to try nesting outside again. OK, so it's not Hadrian's Wall but it is an environmentally friendly version of a dry stone wall and it's a mega impressive structure.

 As you can see from the pictures the base is built with an intricate weave of tiny branches he snapped off from the lower trunks of trees and as the wall gets taller the size of the branches become thicker and stronger. They have been reclaimed from storm damaged trees on the forest floor. It's quite amazing, I'm sure you will agree. He proudly says the design is Algerian and will enable tiny creatures like mice and voles to pass through while blocking the path of our enemies Mr Fox and Old Brock.

 He also reckons birds will be drawn like magnets during the nesting season and his wall will become a host to all sorts of wildlife while repelling the predators who've made our lives such a misery these last few weeks. Regular visitors to this blog know the pain we've endured following the loss a nesting goose and turkey. Should you want to build a similar barrier I am sure my husband will be happy to advise and give some tips on how make such a structure. I'd also love to hear your feedback as well.

 I may even show the design to SNP leader Alex Salmond should, in the event of Scotland being blessed with independence, he wants a cost effective and environmentally friendly version of the Roman Wall built to keep out the neighbours south of the Borders!

MISS MOODY GOES BROODY

HEN HOUSE: Now a hot house

for broody Josephine

.. But Josephine still rules the roost

 OF ALL my feathered stock I would say the most anti-social is Josephine. She's a gorgeous looking black Scots Dumpy I bought in Northampton along with my rather spectacular cockerel Napoleon in September last year.
 Dumpys are normally cuddly, social chooks with wonderful characters which is why Josephine's moody temperament stands out in the hen pen where, in terms of pecking order, she commands pole position.
 Basically no one challenges Josephine and the only other Dumpy to interact with her is Napoleon; the two are normally inseparable and always sleep in the same hen house (there are four abodes from which to choose) with him perching and her nesting in a corner.

HORATIO & MOODY JOSEPHINE: Used to
be inseparable

 Well something very interesting happened yesterday - she occupied the smallest, tallest hen house and refused to budge. It's a favourite laying spot for the rest of the hens who were becoming increasingly vocal at not being able to get access to lay their eggs. He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is stuck his hand in to engage with her and is still nursing his right fore finger for the trouble ... proving that he is hen-pecked but not by me!

 Being more wary I lifted up the hatch and took a quick peek - she expanded her body by fluffing her feathers and made a really odd, throaty gurgling sound which sent me running for the poultry books. Having lost one hen to egg peritonitus I wanted to make sure she wasn't going down with something equally terminal. Mercifully Josephine is not ill but her hormones are rampaging ... more so than usual. According to the experts and my chicken manual she is displaying all the symptoms of a broody hen for this time of year.

 Now incase you didn't know, a broody hen is worth her weight in gold for a small holder like me but for professionals it's a nuisance and some simply dip their hormonal hens in a bucket of ice cold water in an attempt to cool down the poor creature and knock her off her cycle. I think that's rather cruel but I'm merely an amateur so will move on swiftly lest someone should accuse me of trying to teach hen veterans how to suck eggs.

EVICTED: Beryl & Ruby

 I returned to Josephine and gently picked her up - and what a surprise I got. Not only was her breast and abdomen hotter than Hades she was sitting on at least a dozen eggs. She must have simply hijacked a full nest, knocked out some of her own and has commandeered it for sole occupancy.
 Horatio is non too happy as he always slept there while Ruby and Beryl were regular occupants on the very high overhead perch. Now they've all had to find alternative accommodation until Josephine completes her broody cycle.
 Hens' eggs take around 21 days to hatch so it will be interesting to see if she stays the course. I'm also wondering, with some concern, if she will make a good mother given her mood swings when she's not broody.
 * Meanwhile the surrogate turkey mum is still sitting on a pile of eggs, including those belonging to the Bourbon Red who was snatched by a fox last week. She also makes the same throaty, gurgling sound if you get too near ... hope it's not catching!

TURKEY TRAGEDY FORCES RE-THINK

.. AS VIXEN STRIKES

  THE clumps of feathers told me all I needed to know.  It's happened again. Another tragedy and more loss of life but this time the villain was not a badger but a fox ... a vixen with hungry cubs to feed - and before all you townies go "aaaah, cute" with a bit of luck she will have carried out her last kill by dawn tomorrow.
 As regulars of Soho2Silo know, I'm still reeling from the badger attack which took out a goose and her entire clutch of eggs last week and while I agonised over what I could do about the turkey who chose to set up a secret nest near the hen pen (http://soho2silo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/nature-or-nurture.html) I did nothing. I decided to leave it to Nature and now there are self-recriminations.

TELL TALE SIGNS: The clumps of feathers reveal tragedy

 The unfortunate goose from Sweden was called Queenie but my poor slain turkey didn't even have a name. She was one of the Three Degrees, a trio of Bourbon Reds I bought from a farm in North Yorkshire.
 In the meantime some dear friends bought me an incubator and while I was tempted to take the turkey's eggs hubby pleaded with me to let her continue and so she did until the early hours of this morning. And no, I'm not blaming he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is and in truth he is just as upset as me at the loss of more stock because we are fond of them all.
 My bedroom overlooks the scene of the crime but since I have taken to going to bed listening to BBC Radio 4 on an evening to drown out the noise of the clog dancers who inhabit the attic (more about them another time) I heard nothing.
 This morning I called in my own CSI expert and he surveyed the scene for around half an hour and went off down a bankside leading on to a river. When he returned he gave me his assessment.
 The killer was a vixen who, judging from the clumps of feathers around the nest site, had struggled to rip the Bourbon Red turkey from her nest. He says it was a vixen because a dog fox would have eaten his kill just a few yards away but this fox took the bird all the way to her lair where she would have fed her waiting cubs.

SURROGATE MUM:  Bourbon Red turkey
sits on a variety of eggs due to hatch next week

 He followed the trail of feathers through the woodland and down to the riverside, then along to a small hump-backed bridge, over a road and into some more woodland. By all accounts my turkey must have put up one hell of a struggle because of the clumps of feathers at various points en route. Delicate paw marks also revealed the sex of the fox.
 And there's more - the gamekeeper reckons she will be back and, if wanted, he will be lying in wait. I nodded vigorously. Unlike badgers, foxes are not a protected species and, as any farmer will tell you, they are a pest and should be shot on sight. No time for sentiment. I am not going to lose any more of my animals if I can help it.
 As usual, where there is death there is also hope of life. The eggs were left intact and I gathered them all up and shoved them under a turkey which is nesting in the stable. Her own eggs are in the incubator and at the moment she is sitting on a couple of abandoned goose eggs and half a dozen chicken eggs as well as a pot egg.

NEST EGG: The start of another turkey nest

 I don't know if the eggs left behind by her sister  are still in a condition to hatch - only time will tell but whatever happens you will be among the first to know.
 And there's still more - the last of the Three Degrees has started laying eggs in her own secret nest very close to the house. The gamekeeper has advised that as soon as she starts sitting on her batch of eggs I should intervene and move them all into the stable where they will be safely locked up every evening. I am going to take his advice - at the moment I feel it is better to nurture rather than leave it to Nature.
 What do you think?

A HELPING HAND

..Or a hindrance

 What a rollercoaster day it has been and the dramas are continuing well into the night.
 Vera, my beautiful Toulouse goose proudly showed off a newly-hatched gosling early this morning and by noon there was another yellow fluffy ball beginning to emerge from one of the remaining nine eggs. See the short video clip below.
 'Nature not nurture', I thought to myself as I walked away but an hour later one of the goslings was dead and another was lying exhausted only half way out of its shell. Vera was clearly distressed and my presence near her makeshift nest was only making matters worse so I retreated.
 In the meantime I went to check on the turkeys and their own egg-laying saga - one has stayed out eight nights on the run now keeping a lonely vigil on her nest away from prying eyes ... although a previous posting reveals its secrets. The other turkey who is nesting has been sitting on her eggs in a stable for nearly as long, but I must confess I've been nicking her eggs and saving them for the new incubator which arrived a few days ago.

And just to make sure she's not distressed by the theft I replaced each delivery with a fake, pot egg. My other half pointed out that now she is sitting on a clutch of pot eggs it's rather cruel to let the deception continue indefinitely. His observations have really pricked my conscience and so I've now started replacing the pot eggs with those laid by my Scots Dumpys. Yes, yes, I know - it seems I'm using a shovel to dig myself into a deeper hole than the one I've already made.
'O, what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive,' wrote Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott. I wonder if he kept birds?
 Anyway I daren't think of the deep psychological damage I'm going to do when the turkey hatches hens' eggs and looks at her tiny offspring for the first time. Nor am I sure how wee chooks will react by a massive, big mum who looks nothing like them.
 And I've no idea what's in store for me tomorrow when I check Vera or if the little chappie in the film above will still be alive.
 It seems if I remain hands off then disaster could strike if the little gosling loses his struggle to get out of his shell but if I meddle with Nature then I could make things worse.
 Once again the thorny dilemma of Nature v Nurture looms large.


                                               

NATURE OR NURTURE

.. Or should we give a helping hand?

OUTDOOR SUPER SCOUT: Davy
Crockett portrayed by Fess Parker

  HOT on the heels of his success of  finding a dead fox while out for a stroll, my city-based husband now thinks he's a cross between American frontier legend Davy Crockett and British super sleuth Sherlock Holmes. So when I threw him the latest countryside conundrum he went off into the great outdoors with an air of confidence bordering on smug.
 For more than a week now one of the turkeys goes AWOL within minutes of being let out in the morning. She feeds with the others and then wanders off, usually when I'm not looking, only to reappear several hours later after I've already convinced myself some harm has befallen her. My routine on a morning is to first open up the turkey house and place their feed a few yards away on the ground outside. By the time I go to the hen pen and release the Scots Dumpys the turkeys begin to wander into the yard towards their feed and usually peer disdainfully through the wire mesh as the hens scramble for their food. And it is in these few minutes that one of the Three Degrees seizes the moment and goes off on her mystery mission, it's as though she completely vanishes into thin air leaving behind staggs Ant & Dec, Little Boots and her two sisters.

VANISHING ACT: Five 
turkeys but where's the sixth?

 Twice now I've tried to follow her but as soon as she turns round the corner of the building and down a series of steps in the 12 seconds it takes to follow her she's gone. Her colouring as a Bourbon Red is very striking but once in woodland her feathers seem to blend perfectly into the background. I recounted all of this in detail to hubby and he vowed he'd find her, after all he found the fox didn't he? Two mornings running he failed to come up with anything but with each day he became more determined and then the Eureka! moment happened. And just as he stumbled across the dead fox this great find also happened by accident. He was working in a wooded area below the hen pen when he heard something stirring in a pile of branches, twigs and sticks he'd bundled some weeks earlier against a gable wall. Expecting to see a rat or squirrel, or something equally furry he watched and waited and to his amazement a furtive-looking turkey hen crawled through the bracken, almost limbo dancing between the branches, to emerge from her secret den. After she left, he poked around the pile of branches that you can see in the picture, below left. they're in the foreground wedged between to gable end-style supporting walls. His search was duly rewarded as he discovered no less than half a dozen eggs.

HIDE & SEEK: Can you spot the nest?

 Experiencing a mixture of excitement and irritation as he relayed the news to me I grabbed a bowl and we went off to the site to check out his story. Over the next 20 minutes we were at loggerheads over what to do. My instincts told me to collect the large speckled eggs and wait for the arrival of my incubator but he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is insisted that I let Nature take its course.
 On the one hand the turkey has shown a protective instinct, found a superb location to lay eggs and it is well sheltered if and when she is ready to sit on them. On the other hand, she's not a year old, this is her first batch of eggs and she has no experience of life as a mother; add to that she is used to sleeping inside a warm stable on an evening how will she cope with at least 25 nights under the stars? May be it's just luck that no predators have spotted her secret nest so far, but when she spends 24/7 for 25 days sitting on the nest she might not be as lucky.
 Hubby has gone back to London now,  and today I thought I would make a quick check of the nest. Here are a couple of pictures which will give you an idea of how well camouflaged she is to the human eye, but what about a fox?

SPOT THE BIRD: Can you see her?

GOTCHA: A clearer closer 
shot of the mum-to-be 

 As you can see from the picture left, she is very well hidden. I didn't see her but I stuck my camera phone into the bracken and clicked away not quite knowing what I was snapping and truth be told, I didn't realise she was in there at all because she remained completely silent throughout. I was merely trying to establish how many eggs she had laid and if they were still there so it took a while to spot her in this photograph, a bit like those babyscan pictures they show in hospitals to expectant mums, most of us sit there nodding enthusiastically too embarrassed to say we can't spot the baby. If you still can't see her check out the smaller picture above, on the right, which was taken from a slightly closer overhead angle. So what do you advise? Should I trust Nature or should I intervene, grab the eggs and incubate them in a controlled environment? Nature v Nurture - who wins?

TURKEY REPRIEVE

 .. But here comes the axeman to chop off your head!

  WHILE pondering new stock for my small holding I got to thinking it would be nice if I reared some turkeys - being more or less the same shape as hens I thought they couldn't be too much bother but they'd also provide a lot more meat and would make a nice gift for my family over Christmas as table birds. The hens were proving to be easy-peasy, so why would turkeys be any different?

FESTIVE: Traditional Xmas roast

 Like all the best laid plans this one began to fall apart almost as soon as I'd picked up my Bourbon Reds. Turkeys are, apparently, very sensitive creatures and the slightest upheaval in their lives can induce suicidal tendencies or severe depression followed by death. Well no one told me!
 The journey to the Scottish Borders from Whitby proved too traumatic for a couple of the females and within days both died, not quite from shock but the journey triggered an underlying disease according to the post mortem examination results at the nearby animal laboratories.
 The remaining three - two stags and a hen - looked quite forlorn and so after being given a course of anti-biotics I tried to give them as much TLC as a turkey can take. Mercifully all this care and attention began to pay dividends and so after they rallied around I let the three out to wander freely a few hours each day. I then made the mistake of giving them names: Ant, Dec and Little Boots.

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS: The two 

stags roaming on the range

By December I had become quite attached to the trio and so decided that after their emotional upheaval they should be left well alone. This rather irritated hubby who had been looking forward to carving a halal turkey at the annual festive Ridley gathering.
 However as January arrived problems began to emerge when it became obvious a more mature Ant and Dec both had designs on Little Boots. The two stags were constantly fighting and the hen had a permanently worried look and so I discussed the issue with my better half. His solution was predictable and final and involved an axe whereas my response was to add to the gaggle of turkeys and therefore increase our chances of breeding decent table birds for Christmas 2013. I reasoned that because there is a growing number of converts to Islam in the UK and many of them still go and see their families around the Christmas season; offering halal turkeys would, I thought, be a best seller and I still think it could be. Food is always a great unifier but, speaking from experience, it's always daunting spending Christmas Day with your non-Muslim loved ones when you can't share the turkey roast because it's not halal.

ANT & DEC & LITTLE BOOTS : For the chop?

 However hubby was having none of it and put his foot down. No more turkeys. He was adamant, even raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips. It was an open and shut case. "No" meant "no" and there was clearly no wiggle room. So I did what I always do when faced with such adamance - I sought a second opinion. I went through the Google search engine and found a turkey farmer in the south and asked him; the wonderful thing about countryside folk is that they're very happy to share their knowledge, their years of wisdom, inside tricks and know how. Coming from the backstabbers' paradise of Fleet Street where you share absolutely nothing but misinformation and watch your back 100pc of the time, even with your closest work colleagues, this caring sharing culture among countryfolk was completely alien to me at first. But people in the boondocks genuinely want to help their fellow man or woman.
 Anyway my new best friend, the turkey farmer, offered a less drastic solution than hubby - either slaughter the hen or one of the stags but change the ratio otherwise the stags could kill each other, and so I went to hubby and gave him the option. Well it turns out he was just as attached to the birds as I was and so not only were all three given a reprieve, I was told to go and buy three more hens. Result!
 Being a good and obedient wife I was straight on to it and by the next day I'd located a trio of Bourbon Reds off the A1 in Yorkshire and went off to collect them. They turned out to be the Christmas leftovers from a turkey farm and so had also been given a second lifeline. They are collectively known as the Three Degrees.
 So then there were six and like all good stories there should be a happy ending ... but this is the countryside and I am a greenhorn homesteader and there's another installment but you will have to wait for a few more days. Brace yourself for the unexpected.