DEATH (12 so far) and mutilation on the homestead
If you are squeamish and can't handle death and mutilation you might want to skip this thread. However real world survival is not always pretty, in-fact there is a lot of ugliness to living on a farm or homestead, hence this thread.
My long awaited 15 Broad Breasted Turkeys arrived Friday at 10:15 AM and four were dead in the box, and the other 11 did not look good, they looked drugged unable to stand., lethargic. Over the next 24 hours 7 more died.
This spring I also experimented with with taking Fertile goose eggs from the mother goose and putting them in with the Hen Turkey eggs, and extracting a non-fertile (No Tom Turkey) turkey egg each time. This worked fine and after 31 days the first goose was born. However it's beak was mutilated, it is still alive, but will most likely have to be destroyed if it can't eat. Today another was born and it had beat its self to death trying to escape the shell. I think that the mother goose helps crack open the thick shell of the goose egg when it is time, as goose hatch-lings have soft flat beaks.
The turkey chicks on the other hand have thin shells, and pointed beaks, and can chop there own way out of the shell. The hen turkey would not know she was sitting goose eggs, I blame me for the death of one and the mutilation of another. Now what to do with the rest of the eggs that the turkey is setting, I guess bring them into the cabin and but them by the wood stove and see what happens.
Please withhold the condolence's in response to this post. I get your pain at having to read this. Again this experience does bring up that some live with the regular experience of death, loss, birth, killing, butchering, etc. In a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI, you may be thrust unwillingly into a new world of harsh realities which you have hitherto avoided.
