As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was very intrigued about the turkey pen as was featured in a book I read. This was a method of building a stick pen, digging a trench into it, in which bird seeds had been scattered, and the birds would then feed into the trench, following the bird trail into the cage, and then not be intelligent enough to duck down and walk back out, as birds apparently always look up.
I so desire the money, time and whatever to study this, as General Philip Sheridan in his memoirs was engaged in this in Texas as he was an ornithologist in studying the pretty birds wintering there. His studies were for song birds, and I include it here, as an interesting insight into what birds responded to this, as of course a swallow eating bugs in the air, is not going to light on the ground and walk along pecking grain.
I spent many a leisure hour in catching specimens by means of stick traps, with which I found little difficulty in securing almost every variety of the feathered tribes. I made my traps by placing four sticks of a length suited to the size desired so as to form a square, and building up on them in log-cabin fashion until the structure came almost to a point by contraction of the corners. Then the sticks were made secure, the trap placed at some secluded spot, and from the centre to the outside a trench was dug in the ground, and thinly covered when a depth had been obtained that would leave an aperture sufficiently large to admit the class of birds desired .
Along this trench seeds and other food were scattered , which the birds soon discovered, and of course began to eat, unsuspectingly following the tempting bait through the gallery till they emerged from its farther end in the centre of the trap, where they contentedly fed till the food was all gone. Then the fact of imprisonment first presented itself, and they vainly endeavored to escape through the interstices of the cage, never once guided by their instinct to return to liberty through the route by which they had entered.
Among the different kinds of birds captured in this way, mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover were the most numerous."
Of course now a wire cage would be built, but in 1850 the technology to create wires welded together was not available so sticks were utilized.
I think it would be great labor and enjoyment to build this to catch a gobbler. I assume it would be legal even with waterfowl like ducks and geese, providing I was not digging up public lands or in this case private without permission as farmers get testy about such things.
A door should not be required for game birds as the trench would provide that. A poultry hook designed to catch the leg would probably all that would be necessary. Now that I think of this, a door would be required unless you tipped it over. The door being of necessity in selectively releasing females or choice males.
When God decides to provide me the money, I am going to do this to see how good this trapping would compare to hunting. I have to factor in the diameter of the cage as it would require optimum space inside to keep birds from falling into the trench. I wonder if a cage wire over the inner trench would bother the birds entering so they would have something to step on in trying to find release or if it would be necessary to keep them out of the trench.
So much to study and become an expert on. I hope God moves people with money to donate instead of their listening to satan to not donate.
agtG
