Of all places for this to happen, White Oak is probably one of the best spots for the eagles to have staked a claim.
Georgia poultry farm for sale portable#
The raptors circle above the portable chicken houses, where they are guaranteed a fresh meal. Department of Agriculture has a program that reimburses farmers who incur losses from protected wildlife, but to get the money, you must prove the predator caused each death-a complicated endeavor when you’re talking about thousands of chickens.īald Eagles probably don’t consume more than one chicken a day, though they may kill others that aren’t eaten. A few weeks later they went after the newborn goats. Though by this past winter, White Oak probably gave a little more than it could truly afford: Right around the time Harris contacted the National Audubon Society, in December 2015, the eagles had moved from attacking chickens only to taking down turkeys, too.
“You’re supposed to give 10 percent to the church and we don’t really do that, but we’re giving 10 percent to nature,” Harris says. Harris chose to view the sacrifice of some of his principal product in terms that verged on the spiritual. So for a time the farm tried to live with them. He could try to shoo them, but most methods would be costly and likely to scare the chickens before the eagles.
Due to the birds’ protected status under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and other federal laws, Harris had few options.
At that time, Harris estimated each raptor was killing up to four chickens a day, racking up a total of at least $1,000 in daily losses. When I visited in January, at least 75 Bald Eagles were living on the farm, where they overwinter October to March. This also means that for the Bald Eagles that showed up a few years ago, White Oak is an all-you-can-eat buffet. As the next level beyond free-range, this farm never contains its adult birds indoors, instead allowing them to roam without restraint at all times. White Oak is home to one of the largest pastured chicken flocks in the country at any given time, 60,000 birds wander the land in accordance with pasture-raised parameters. What else could she do? The slaughter here is relentless. Jenni was unperturbed, he explains she simply wiped the bloody goo off the windshield before driving away. Jenni’s father, Will Harris, the fourth-generation owner of White Oak Pastures in the tiny town of Bluffton (population: 100), is laughing as he tells me about the gut-drenched vehicle. These gory leavings splatter anything below the tall oaks at White Oak Pastures, a family farm in rural Georgia-including, one morning, Jenni Harris’s SUV. After a few minutes, all that remains is a clump of feathers and discarded viscera. It’s unclear exactly when the chicken dies, but the eagle’s beak is quite effective at pulling out the other bird’s meat. Swooping down, the eagle unfurls its hand-like claws, scoops up a chicken, and sweeps up to a tree, whereupon the larger bird lays the smaller bird on a branch to allow for easy consumption. It is a magnificent creature, precision-built to do two things that reliably fill humans with awe-fly and kill-and it looks completely at ease doing both. And yet you can’t help but root for the eagle.
In a battle between a Bald Eagle and a chicken, the chicken is definitely the long shot.