Sunday, September 30, 2012

A MURDER ON THE FARM

The Tragic Death of Pretty Boy Floyd.

















I named him after a gangster of the '20's.  From the monent he grew his first tail feathers Floyd was in constant display. And when you called him a "pretty boy" he would really strut his stuff.



















Born June 18, 2011, he was one of the seven turkey chicks I helped from their shells in the incubator.  These were Spanish Black Turkeys that I was hatching for a friend of a friend, and he graciously left me three of them for my troubles.
















They became Floyd, Mrs. T and Maude.
















Here are Floyd and Mrs. T.
Floyd usually chose to either be alone or with humans when possible.






























In fact Floyd was a real people person. I truely believe that he thought he was human.  Whenever we had visitors, Floyd was always right there doing his Floyd thing.  This consisted of him walking around a person in full display and very slowly inching his way closer and closer until he finally touched them with his feathers. Unless they tried to touch him, in which case he moved away and started all over again.  Floyd did NOT like to be touched.  Occaisionally I was able to pet him when he was on his roost for the night, but usually he just moved out of reach.

This year Floyd and the girls supplied us with many eggs to incubate.  Then Maude snuck off one day and started a nest outside.  She hatched 12 chicks and did her best to raise them outside by herself. (This put Mrs. T into brood mode, she immediately built a nest and tried to hatch her own too. However the chickens added to her nest at every opportunity and when the first egg hatched she abandoned the nest. A couple of weeks later she realised she had hatched a chicken and abandoned that too. However she has continued to lay an egg a day for the last 4 months.) Then week by week they dwindled until she only had 9 left. Then disaster struck.  One morning I woke up to find the baby turkeys in the duck pen with the ducks.  No sign of Maude so I went searching for the very protective mom.  I found piles of feathers where the apparent coyote attack happened and a trail of feathers where it dragged her off.  We gathered up the chicks and put them in a cage.  Two were sold along with some of the incubated turkeys to make up our final order.  We must have sold about 60 turkey chicks this year.  The remaining 7 are still here and doing well.
"Pretty Boy" Floyd and one of the young 'uns.





















We have been trying to figure out what we were going to do with all of the extra turkeys this winter and Wifey suggested getting rid of Floyd and Mrs. T when we get our last meat turkey butchered.  However such a ruckus was formed by family and friends when this was mentioned that we had to keep them.  So a neighbor will be buying our extras.

Then today another disaster.  About 3:15 this afternoon I was over at my Step-mother's when I recieved a call from Wifey.  Someone had murdered Floyd.

A guy had stopped his SUV on the road by the house, got out of his vehicle and shot Floyd twice in our yard.  By the time Wifey got to the front porch he was dispatching poor Pretty Boy my stomping his head into the ground.  Wifey hollered at him "What the Hell are you doing shooting my animals."  But he just ignored her and picked up Floyd and threw him in the back of his vehicle and sped off down the road.

As soon as I got home we went in search of the vehicle at the local DNR parking lots but to no avail.  We came home and called the DNR and reported the incident.

Talk about pissed off !!!

It's degenerates like this that give hunters a bad name.  Not only to be driving with a loaded gun in the car, but to stop 50 feet from a house, on the road and shoot a tom turkey surrounded by our other turkeys, chickens, ducks and geese in their yard.

The best 30 foot shots of his life. And he needed 2 and still didn't get the job done right.

Somewhere tonight this a_ _ hole is bragging to his friends about his hunting abilities.

Well I hope he chokes on his turkey dinner.





























6 comments:

Kelly said...

What a bastard! After being a nurse for MANY years I have come to the decision that I truly like animals much more than most humans. I hope he chokes and can't reach the phone to call 911. I feel for you and your wife. RIP Floyd. I know she was too upset to get the tag number. If you do somehow find out who it is please keep us updated.

Reddunappy said...

So sorry!

And not to mention that a domestic turkey looks nothing like a wild one, being 3 times the size!

What a jerk.

warren said...

Asshole is right! That's awful and takes quite a pair to shoot a bird in someone's yard in broad daylight...that sucks!

GreyWolf said...

Kelly - I believe he is a city hunter who comes here to hunt. I plan on keeping my eyes open for him every weekend during the hunting season. Maybe even going looking for his vehicle on the surrounding state land. Wifey said we should put orange ribbons around our animals necks. I told her it would just make them easier targets.

Reddunappy - Especially since mine are all black. He either thought he hit the jackpot or didn't care that it was tame.

Warren - What can I say, he is evidently a Macho Macho Man.

Mum said...

What an awful excuse for a man. I would be ready to chase him down and beat him with a shovel over my turkeys, and I give you my sympathy. Floyd was very handsome. I hope his ladies are not too lonely.

GreyWolf said...

MamaDragon - Thanks. As a matter of fact she is very lonely and we have decided to put her in the freezer to make room for the youngsters we will keep for breeding next year. It's a sad thing when the loss of one makes a hard decision for you.