We Bought A Farm: The Story of the Turkey who choked

This morning I went to check on our pasture-raised turkeys and discovered one was dead. This is very unusual as these turkeys are incredibly hardy and once they make it to about four weeks old, we never lose one.

I did some investigation and figured out that he had started chewing on a "tie" that we use to tie fencing to other fencing. It was halfway down his throat and had obviously choked him. It was just an old tie that had probably gotten dropped in their paddock somewhere along the line -- possibly many months (or years?!) ago.

You know, there's one thing about death from other predators or things you can't control. But when you feel it is something that you were sort of responsible for, it really bothers me. It bothered me all day. As I carried his body out of the paddock, he was soooo heavy. Not only was I sad that he had choked, but I was also sad that we were basically losing an entire sale of meat.

Every mistake is an opportunity to learn, and as my cousin's wife, Hannah Grace and I, moved the turkeys to a new paddock later that day, we took the time to quickly glance around and make sure there weren't any blue ties anywhere that they could choke on again.

So much of this life is unpredictable. I keep thinking .... we are doing this simply to homestead. This is not an income for us. How do farmers handle the disappointments when their family's life is on the table?

So challenging. So much to learn. So much happiness and sadness. So much excitement and frustration.

#Ican'tbelievethisismylife