Quote:
As I sit here and savor a log of mixed deer and hog summer sausage (my recipe) with my family contemplating all that we have to be thankful for including the right to enjoy the bounty god or nature has placed before us just as our founding fathers did, I second this post.
Happy thanksgiving to all whether that turkey was raised with a couple thousand others, taken by you or made of tofu!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
edited to add i am waking up at 5am this thanksgiving morning to hopefully harvest that big buck i have been after. wish me luck! may the crosshairs be steady
Anti Hunter? Wow. I must've wasted a whole lot of time hunting Wapiti on my ranch this fall. Must not have been me that dressed her and dragged her down off the mountain in the freezing fog either. My horse slipped and cut up her hock. Have to change the bandage every morning. Sure was a mess in my kitchen but boy that sausage sure is tasty ( and nutritious and a supplement to the meat harvested from my working farms and ranch) and me and the boys made it all by hand.
I live in elk country fizzle sticks and wear my
ropers to bed. The difference between me and that little man in the photo is that I have Respect for NATURE and all her bounties.
Somebody wise taught me close to forty years ago to never kill something unless I was ready to eat it. Hunting for "sport" is something practiced by little tiny men.
Getting back to the topic of predators of peafowl, if they're established properly they don't seem to get disappeared with any of the regularity of your typical poultry.
Average age of the peafowl on most old ranches is somewhere in the early teens- ten or eleven being what you should expect for most birds but many an old bird will survive well past that, avoiding their enemies with surprising cunning and strength. Hardly a week goes by when you won't hear the swarm a Kok! Kok! Kok! Kok! knocking from out in the woods and pasture- coyote or lynx likely- love to watch them all winging straight up the hill and into their favorite trees.
Like guineas or turkeys or chickens- it may all come down to the level of domestication of the bird that will determine its capacity to rise up vertically fast enough and with enough dexterity to avoid getting captured. The old males seem to fight a bit with the foxes and bobcats- you can follow them with field glasses -always approaching the threat - that's the strategy - it may seem silly but these birds are millions of years old and in their native haunts they have a much wider diversity of predators and they're well equipped to survive.
I've been surprised with owls- I think they may be better predators of peahens and juvenile males than I once assumed. Great Barred Owls wont bother but the Great Horned Owls- when they've got owlets are really good at flushing birds of the year off their nocturnal perches and capturing them as they fly off - this is why it's in everyone's interest to select the right plumage -if you live in a place with lots of birches -aspens- white bark- pale peahens seem to fare better- on the nest as well.
Raccoons - those little monkey bears are the scourge of tarnation - don't get me started on those little bastards. Living fossils they may be but I do not hesitate removing them at first sight and it's taken me years to get that gumption. I don't eat the raccoons but I do plant them under the blue berries and a cycle is fulfilled.
Catamounts- they'll chase peacocks from tree to tree over a very wide area -but I think they just find the peacocks fascinating. They're after the old males- generally- the peacock has a cat and mouse game hard wired in nature with the leopard - they'll show up in early spring and late summer- but I don't think they take as many peafowl as coyotes. Hawks aren't interested in peafowl, not even goshawks but a golden eagle will take a peahen- that happens out west pretty often. Surprisingly- male peafowl will take on a big bird of prey- as it wrestles with a member of the peacock's flock- it will get swarmed and on the ground no bird of prey is any match for a peacock. They will beat the living hell out of any bird of prey they can tackle on the ground- again- a hard-wired instinct from nature where Hawk Eagles are notorious predators of young peafowl and
they hunt in pairs or packs ( this first year peahen was actually killed by the female after being approached by the smaller male . Had there been an adult male present, perhaps her fate would have been different.
Male peafowl are pretty tough in that department. That's why they're always announcing their elevation and intention to do battle when a hawk flies over and one reason old time pioneers carried peacocks all the way to their homesteads - to protect their chickens.
Most of my peafowl will reek like a skunk at some point of the warm season- they just can't leave them alone. A group will just keep after that poor thing until it's baffled and exhausted- but don't forget- there is no better mouser than a skunk. Skunks are not your enemy- not under the barn- just leave them be if you want chipmunks to stay out of your feed.
Let's see what else- wandering dogs from visiting tourists and seasonal residents- they suck and will kill anything and everything- run your horses into the fences- rip the guts out of a rhea- I've got a salt shooter just for them.
I think lynxes and bobcats are the best predators of the peahen and the juveniles- but again- old males with trains seem to live forever -that mantra of the peacock being made more vulnerable and easy kill by its predators has never been something I've seen substantiated- not in truly fit birds- not in nature- where I've researched and not on farms or ranches- its the peahens that get eaten first followed by the juvenile males. Subadult males seem to hold their own too.
But really - I learned the hard way that predators of different regions -the forest cover- or what have you- they all are major factors - no place is identical- but peafowl are pretty bright even if they
behave in ways that may seem more than little counter-intuitive .
We see the peacock's "
courtship display " as a pretty vainglorious showing when in fact, it's actually a demonstration of intent- that's another topic.
One has to wonder where the peahen's nest is.... Dollars to donuts it's behind the fan.
Fake footage shows tiger catching train bearing male =actually jumping up and taking dead juvenile male bait hung from tree- wildlife photographs were so frustrated that they never were able to witness an adult peacock being captured by any of its natural predators.
All in all - if the birds are well-established- they seem to be pretty capable of
discouraging intruders from trespass.
Epic Battles are sure to happen in the meadows- and you'll probably not be lucky enough to witness them...
I've developed a strategy to naturalise peafowl on an estate or farm - which I'll share with if anyone's interested.
