nursing turkeys and falling in love with ducks

This past week has been a whirlwind. The turkeys have arrived! They arrived, however, with a bad bacterial 'thing' which originated at the hatchery and we've lost quite a few of them.

We have always had excellent luck with turkeys and have always ordered from the same hatchery . . . until this year. For several reasons we chose, against our instincts, to try a different hatchery. Needless to say, we are not impressed. The bacterial thing seems to have run it's course and everyone is now on the mend. We pulled out all of the tools in our natural animal care toolbox but time really seemed to be what they needed. The strong ones survived, the weak ones did not. We've seen our fair share of death on the farm but it never gets easier and certainly not when it's occurring on a daily basis. That sort of thing tends to wear on a person - especially a very emotional mama-to-be.

We are taking a deep breath and moving on. We're disappointed that we wont be able to raise the number of birds we ordered but we're feeling grateful for the turkeys we do have. We had a few other exciting new arrivals along with our turkeys. A small batch of . . .





DUCKLINGS!

These are not for production but for fly control and fun and entertainment on the farm. Though they are a little skittish around us still, we're finding ourselves falling more in love with them by the day. I have visions of our children playing with them someday. They have been a breath of fresh air as we've dealt with the turkey losses. You just can't help but smile when you see them. Who would've thought that what we really needed were a few ducks in our lives.