My first blog today was centred around the extremes of bullying behaviours that we sadly see in our human world...but bullying happens without rhyme or reason in the animal world too .Yesterday two of the turkey poults ( females) suddenly turned on the smallest bird which is the slate grey poult. Viciously the little stag ( I am still quite not sure of his sex) was pecked and harassed by one of the females even though he constantly ran to the performing Boris in what resembled a plea for protection.
The attack was sustained and completely out of the blue, and in the end I had to intervene and remove the little guy from the enclosure to walk safely around with the hens and ducks (above)
Last night I replaced him into the turkey house with the others, in the hope that things would settle down overnight, and this morning the aggression ( although still there in bursts) is no where as pronounced as it was yesterday..
I am digging out the veg beds today, so I can keep an eye on the little fella!
Tonight there is a community council "open" meeting at the memorial hall to discuss the proposed building of houses "outside" of the village envelope in greenbelt land.....I suspect a large proportion of the village will be in attendence and the whole thing will be a bit of a bunfight!!!
I shall be there!!!
growth and greed has ruined our little town. Take lots of buns!
ReplyDeleteDon't take your cues from the ruthless poults when you go to your meeting this evening--I don't want to be seeing you on the "World News!" :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with the Jon Venables case. I'll have to google it. Sorry bout the little fella. Are you going tonight to weigh in with your bun, or just to soak up the lastest gossip? Personally, if it twere me...I'd be doing a little of both.
ReplyDelete~Randy
Slate grey poult. Do you plan on keeping him? How come you haven't named the poor picked-on fellow? The whole bullying thing turns my stomach,humans or critters.Mans inhumanity to man (child or adult) is one of those things that if I dwell on it I can cry all day. I remember that horrid case of little 2yr old James, abducted,tortured and murdered.Not being able to imagine such done by an adult,much less 10year old kids.I'm not sure there can be any rehab for such twistedness.Ugh.I have to go listen to some beautiful music to wipe this image from my mind.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I have put an end to bullying by clipping the sharp tip off the beaks of the bullies. Not like they do to commercial birds, which is a permanent disfigurement, just take the toenail nippers and square off the end of the beak. It's harder for the bullies to draw blood, and they lose their enthusiasm for the sport. It's good you got to step in before the little guy really got pecked badly. For the more methodical pecking the females sometimes do on the males, I add a handful of dry cat food to their rations. Sometimes they're looking for more protein.
ReplyDeleteGood for your village people for defending their town. In California 10 houses would be an automatic approval and no one would show up. We have huge 10,000 house developments that get pushed through. The county boards just want the tax money. It's dreadful and ugly.