What do you do when the neighbor's livestock become pests?

[Flock Leader]

Imagine you have a small flock of chickens you love and care for, and free-range in your yard.

Imagine your neighbor has turkeys which they also free-range, but without providing adequate food, shelter or fencing, and one turkey hen daily finds her way to your yard, where she eats your chicken feed, poops on your front steps and pesters your chickens, pecking some to the point of bleeding and terrifying others.

Imagine you had tried to talk, and reason, and coax, and you've never gotten any satisfactory reply or action from your neighbors, who seem bent on considering no one's convenience but their own.

What would you do?

 

[sourland]

I'd be eating turkey and warning the neighbors about the coyotes that I saw.

 

[Flock Leader]

I'd be eating turkey and warning the neighbors about the coyotes that I saw.

Now here's what we actually did: we caught the turkey hen, put her in a cardboard box, drove some way off and released her in a park and took care not to be seen.

Is it ridiculous to feel guilty about it?

 

[Sea2Ski]

It was affecting your property and flock.You have my support. For whatever that is worth....
Some people you can not rationalize with, so you have to take things into your own hands.
Now if it was just noise or they were making efforts to respect your reasonable wishes, that would be different.

I am not sure they are going to be to happy though.

 

[Eggsoteric]

Personally speaking, yes, I would feel quite guilty about doing something like that, especially with a domestic turkey. I don't know what your situation is, however, I'm fortunate in that I have the options of reporting to AC and/or trapping and taking strays to our local shelter.

My thinking is, if one has a neighbor who, after you've discussed the problem with them time and time again and they don't hear you, the chances are good that they're going to continue to have selective hearing so, my choices are, a) I can take matters into my own hands (and by that I'll refer back to my first paragraph above) or b) in order to keep some semblance of peace and sanity of mind, I can do everything within my power to keep the offending animals off my property. I learned a long time ago that I cannot depend on others to do what is right and, if the efforts I put forth end up not working, then I'll go with a).

Now, some will say "But, it's not 'your' responsibility to keep someone else's animals off your property." They would be correct, however, the word "responsible" doesn't seem to be a part of some folk's vocabulary and I sure can't blame the offending animal for their owner's shortcomings and, in the end, before I do go the step further, I can at least say I did everything I was able to protect what's mine.

 

[Pork Pie]

Now here's what we actually did: we caught the turkey hen, put her in a cardboard box, drove some way off and released her in a park and took care not to be seen.

Is it ridiculous to feel guilty about it?

Not sure what implications it had on the turkey in question (none positive, i would imagine). The humans are responsible, not the animals themselves - now if you had blindfolded the neighbour and driven them out to a secluded place and left them - that would be fine.

CT

 

[Flock Leader]

I am not sure they are going to be to happy though.

Yes, I think so too. But we hope they never find out.

Personally speaking, yes, I would feel quite guilty about doing something like that, especially with a domestic turkey. I don't know what your situation is, however, I'm fortunate in that I have the options of reporting to AC and/or trapping and taking strays to our local shelter.

Unfortunately law enforcement wouldn't pay much attention to a complaint like this in our area. Also, the family in question enjoys a high degree of popularity and self-confidence. They have very little consideration for people like us, who are newcomers with relatively few connections in the neighborhood.

 

[bobbi-j]

It would have been kinder to kill the thing and eat it, but she probably didn't last long anyway.

As far as it not being my responsibility to keep someone else's animal off my property, I believe it is my responsibility. When I got chickens it became my responsibility to protect them. Should the neighbors be responsible for keeping their animals off my property? Of course they should! But if they don't, then I need to take care of things on my end.

 

[Lelilamom]

I would have built a 4 X 4 X 8 moveable coop for the turkey. Kept it on my property. Fed and watered the turkey until it was fat. Then processed it and put it in the freezer.

 

[scooter147]

I would have already had a turkey for Thanksgiving in the freezer.