We Bought a Farm: I HATE predators

On Monday morning, JB went out to do the chores on our ducks, geese, and one turkey. (We had one turkey mysteriously show up with our laying chicken order and we've been raising him in there with our ducks and geese for a few months.) John made the following discovery:

We also realized that our lone turkey was nowhere to be found. Eaten. Totally gone.

I know predators are a fact of life and when they kill to eat, I get it. But I hate when I find dead animals that were killed and not eaten. These three ducks have just one puncture wound. Bummer! The one on the top right is one of our five new runner ducks. The two in the bottom were ducks we inherited from a friend when he moved.

The next night, we decided to leave the dead duck carcasses in the paddock. We moved the ducks and geese to a new paddock closer to the house. And then we put up our game cam. We found the guilt party. A coyote!

In this picture you can see that he's actually carrying the dead duck in his mouth.

Definitely a coyote

Deep down I get that we have to share our world with wild animals. But it's just hard when you work so hard to raise these animals and then you lose them. We keep trying to outsmart them, but coyotes are cunning little fellows. It is open season to hunt them anytime of the year. However, as you cut down their population, they actually have bigger litters to compensate with their loss. So you simply cannot defeat them. 

This part of homesteading may be something I never come to terms with.