When the gang of wild turkeys arrived on the farm last year they didn’t cause much trouble. They hung around the pumpkin patch and scratched around in the grassy edges. However, they have now become a major farm pest for us.
Last year’s gang moved on, but during the summer, one pair returned and raised 5 chicks in the pear orchard. That nuclear family was benign enough until a month or so ago, when it joined with another group. Now the new turkey gang is wreaking havoc on our lettuces and greens. They particularly love the little gem lettuces, but will munch down young kales and other greens as well. They have even invaded the greenhouse and eaten the starts there.
The turkeys have made themselves quite at home, coming up on our front porch and occasionally on our roof. (At least they are not yet as brazen as the chickens, who dash into the house whenever someone leaves the door open to try to get at the cats’ food.)
Over the years, we have had various jobs that fell to the kids, like chasing the birds out of the blueberry patch netting, or rounding up the goats when they got out. Now we could use some young kids around to chase turkeys out of the fields all day long!
The turkeys are big pests. With this hot weather we’re also bracing ourselves for the expected onslaught of a smaller but even more damaging pest–the Bagrada Bug–which has arrived at about this time the past two years after similar hot spells. Bagrada Bugs have been gradually expanding their range north over the past several years. With no natural predators in this area, the best defense we’ve got against Bagradas is to cover the young plants with row cover before the Bugs are here. So we are putting out much more row cover on new plantings and transplantings than we usually do. Hopefully that will reduce the potential Bagrada damage, and it will keep the turkeys out of those fields too!
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