Canesister's 2025 journal - Bushel & Peck Farm

[SageHill]

Not sure what I would've done, but for certain I wouldn't condemn or belittle you. You have a heart of gold, and went more than the extra mile.

 

[Baymule]

I’m not a fan of black head vultures. They will kill newborns and eat the back end out of a female animal in the process of giving birth.

Red head vultures only eat carrion. They don’t kill newborns or the moms giving birth. My grandpa called them turkey buzzards because of their red head.

That said, I fully understand and support you for trying to save the vulture. Sometimes the best we can do just isn’t good enough, but we have to try.

 

[farmerjan]

I guess I can see you feeling sorry for it... but NOPE... a black headed vulture will not ever ever get a chance of being saved by me. Had them eat the "a$$ end " of a calf that was recovering from scours... in my BARN.... had about 15 or more of them after a first calf heifer that had just given birth and the daughter staying in the house there at the nurse cow pasture, took the 4 wheeler down and kept them away until I got there, She called me and what should she do, and I was on my way home from work... so she saved the calf...
Like @Baymule said, turkey buzzard, yes.... black headed one NO WAY....

 

[fuzzi]

Comments I've received on my most recent "questionable" decision:

Oh my god.... you are something else
Are you serious???? Why???
What's wrong with you?
Wait.... like a real, actual vulture?? Why?

Yesterday, around 5:30pm I was taking a load of trash to the dumpsters & passed something on the road. Honestly I couldn't tell if it was a trash bag, a re-tread come loose, or some kind of animal.
20mins later, on my way back home... it was still there. A buzzard of some kind, standing in the middle of my lane... soaked, drooping, not getting out of the way. I swerved & missed it. So did the car right behind me. I circled around - hit the emerg. flashers - got out and approached it. It made no attempt to leave... just hunkered there looking as miserable as a naked-headed soaking wet bird can.
I dropped my raincoat over it & scooped it up. It didn't struggle even a tiny bit. And it felt soooo thin.
I put it in the passenger side floor, cranked up the heat & pulled into a wide shoulder.
I googled 'wildlife rehabilitation near me' & spent the next hour leaving voicemails at every one of them plus a few animal control offices, and a couple of vets. Getting nowhere, I took it home and put it in a dog crate in the barn with large cardboard pieces to block the wind. It had started to look comfy in the car with the heat blowing on it & I felt bad that I didn't have a way to warm it in the barn.
Anyway, I continued to make calls and finally started getting responses around 9pm. By 11 I had Finally made contact with someone willing to attempt taking it. Message alerts kept coming in until well after 1am - people not able to help, but wanting to tell me that they hoped someone would.
This morning it was still alive & even hissed at me... weakly. I gave it a bowl of canned chicken in juice & an egg.
Around 10 the rehab lady finally responded to my message about it still being alive. She was heading my way.
I contacted Dad & explained that there was a sick vulture in my barn & a lady on her way to come get it. Could he please be up there around noon to meet her? No, he wouldn't have to do anything, just be there so she wouldn't feel weird going in my barn. Yes... a vulture.
Unfortunately, by the time she arrived it had died. Best guess is that it was a juvenile who was - for whatever reason - starving.


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Almost everyone I told the story to couldn't belive I stopped to help a vulture. Some insisted I should've just left it in the road & let 'nature take it's course'. One said I should've sped up & 'put it out of its misery.... ha ha'.

But I can't help it. When faced with a helpless being who is suffering, I have to try and help.

This endears me to you even more. You are a gentle, kind soul.

 

[SageHill]

So to those who know --- was that a black headed vulture or a turkey vulture?
From what I've read here through the years, I'd treat a black headed vulture the same as I treat rattle snakes.
We only have the turkey vultures here - Thank God.

 

[canesisters]

One of the folks I spoke with said that, from the picts, it was a juvenile black head.