Lost one to a Horned owl last night

[Pollo Blanco]

Happened around two o'clock and it seemed like the owl didn't fully leave the scene until daybreak.

 

[Molpet]

I lose the most adults to GH owls. This year coyotes got 3 adults. Lots of predators get poults.

 

[Molpet]

What do you do when you lose turkeys to predators? with chickens I would coop everyone for a week until the predator moves on, but it is not possible for turkeys. I don't know what to do other than stay up all night worrying.

A good dog helps. Didn;t have as much of a problem until the dog died.

have way too many. that way i am not attached, have enough for breeding stock next year, and feed myself.

last fall I had 17 hens, 4 jennies, 3 toms and 6 jakes when the owls started taking their share. I was going to harvest more jakes but they got my oldest tom so I decided to wait. This spring it was coyotes and nest raiders. I sold 5 hens and predators got 7. Sold one jake and predators got 2. 42 poults hatched out this year, I have 26 left.
Free ranging is not for the faint of heart

 

[R2elk]

What do you do when you lose turkeys to predators? with chickens I would coop everyone for a week until the predator moves on, but it is not possible for turkeys. I don't know what to do other than stay up all night worrying.

I proactively trap ground dwelling predators all year and add them to my soil improvement program.

My turkeys roost in an area that is under flight netting. Over the years I have only seen one GHO get under the flight netting and it got really freaked out about it. I've never seen another one get under there.

 

[R2elk]

But how do you keep the hens and poults safe??? Especially when hens start taking the poults into trees. there is almost no chance for survival when they do that here.

First I collect the eggs until I'm done hatching. I take the poults once they're hatched and put them in the brooder. It is much easier to show and sell poults out of a brooder than from under a hen.

My turkeys have a designated roost area in the run. They do not roost in the trees.

If I do let a hen raise poults, it is in the grow out pen and not in the general population for at least the first two weeks. There are too many bad things thst can happen in the general population.

 

[R2elk]

OK, so even though your hens can fly out of the pen to make hidden nests, they always come back into the covered pen to roost when not nesting. I wish my hens did that :-(
thank you for answering all my dumb questions

It starts by never allowing them to roost in trees.

 

[Pollo Blanco]

I am sorry for your loss. How old was the turkey?

It was hatched by me on June 14th and raised by a friend's daughter. Wife is really disappointed because it was imprinted hard on people. It was a bronze gen.
Got all the video footage, so there's zero mystery of what happened.
We only had the bird for a week.
Bye bye, Priscilla.

 

[R2elk]

How do you prevent the turkeys from flying out of the pen where it is not covered?

I don't. The mature toms forget that they can fly. The hens fly out and make their "hidden nests" inside a perimeter fenced 2 acre area. It is convenient in that I don't have to protect their nests from the toms.

 

[SarahGfa]

I am sorry for your loss. How old was the turkey?

 

[R2elk]

Great Horned owls are capable of taking adult turkeys. They leave my adults alone but will take poults.