Rita is thinking that my tom turkey is a hen but wanted more photos of all of the turkeys.  So I took some today.  The first two are the Narragansett, black mottled and sweet grass mix turkey jennies that I received from Eliz in August 2022.  The plan was to breed them to my White Midget tom the following spring, but he died then.  Here is a lighter colored one,

and the darker one.

So then last May I purchased 5 Black Spanish/Narragansett poults with the hope of saving a male for breeding.  So I save this one thinking it was a jake.

This is a photo of him/her with his siblings from last September.

But now with his/her squatting behavior, I am not sure. It seems like my turkey breeding program is not going well, and I may have to try yet again to get a tom.  Please let me know what you think.

There is other bird news unfortunately.  There are some sad photos below so you may not wish to continue.  Our beloved and gorgeous peacock was missing this morning.  We looked all over and then found this.

These are some of his feathers next to the donkey pen on the path toward the back of our property.  We investigated further we found more feathers farther back on the path.

Then there were these tail feathers next to the fence to the back of the donkey pen.

And then all of these feathers just inside that fence inside the pen.  This appears to be the kill site.  There is bits of tissue including from the legs.

Here’s what it looks like from inside of the pen looking toward where the other tail feathers are on the other side of the fence.

When you look over the fence at the tail feathers just on the other side, the majority have the base of the feathers toward the fence.  It is hard to tell from this photo.

So my best guess is that he was killed in the donkey pen and then feathers pulled and largely eaten.  And then whatever it was pulled him over the fence and continued to eat and defeather him along the path toward the house.  I am wondering if the donkeys disturbed the predator(s).  So with this scenario I am thinking it was bald eagle(s) that killed him, because I doubt coyote could pull him over this fence and a cougar or bobcat would have immediately drug the body away from the house. We have recently found a pile of chicken feathers in our front middle field, one in our barn alleyway and another in the back of the donkey pen against the fence there.  So we were already thinking the bald eagles are the culprit there but weren’t entirely sure.  Tom had taken down the game camera out back for some odd reason so now it is back up along the back of the donkey pen. So that would be the likely route of a four legged predator.   We are known to have coyotes, cougars, bear and bobcats on our property so would like your opinions on what you think we are dealing with.

I also think he was likely killed at night or close to it.  Because I can’t imagine Steve wouldn’t have noticed this commotion and let Tom know what was happening (I was at work).  I am a little surprised the donkeys didn’t raise a ruckus, but they didn’t when there was a cougar in their pen once so they cannot be relied upon.  So we are going to go back to locking the barn at sunset each night and make sure there are no bird roaming around outside then.  Hopefully this will protect them better.

I was just admiring this bird on Wednesday as his feathers were starting to come in again, and I was noticing some white patches revealing some of his genetics.  I almost took photos of him to share but thought I have shared way too many pictures of him over the years.  We have had him since he hatched here in 2013 after his father had been killed.  So we have had and admired him a while.  RIP Mr. Peacock.  You will be missed.