Yesterday was a day of new arrivals at the farm. First thing in the morning, my hubby and Farm Girl went into the city to rescue two mistreated chinchillas from a backyard breeder. The poor things, they were skinny and had matty coats with clumps of hair missing in parts of their body particularly the tales. One was so timid and frightened it hasn't left the sanctuary of the little hut I placed in there for their comfort (she's the one hiding behind the other in the picture below). She cried almost non stop for the entire day. Today thankfully, she has finally stopped crying. Later in the afternoon, Farm Girl and I took a road trip to pick up a new addition to the farm, and while we were gone, someone dropped off this friendly guy. He`s a chinese swan goose...or so I`m told, I`m not an expert on geese breeds. His story is unknown to me other than he was found dirty and with a head injury. The woman patched him up but needed to find a new home for him as she couldn`t keep him in the city. Oldest was home to accept him and told me the woman who brought him to the farm was so pleased with our property and repeatedly stated how happy she was to have him living here. She followed up with an email thanking me once again saying, "I'm glad there is someone out there that cares for animals like you". That was such a nice thing to say. I don't consider myself anywhere near to being a rescue farm, but certainly me and the family love animals and are only too happy to be able to help out where possible. The new addition I mentioned earlier that took us on a small road trip, isn`t necessarily a rescue story but rather a case of rehoming. As in a lot of situations, folks often get seduced by the lure of owning a pet that differs from the conventional dog or cat. Pigs are often the victim to this. Why people bring pigs to the city, I`ll never know. Anyway, it hadn`t taken the owner of this little piglet to realize his mistake. Thankfully, he realized early on and quickly set out to find her a more appropriate home. After Lizzie, I swore I'd never own another pig again. But this little gal is so dang cute! She's a teacup potbelly pig rather than a standard potbelly pig so won't grow to be as big as Lizzie. At the moment, she is Jewel's size. (FYI, Jewel is the golden retriever we kept back from Emma's last litter. She's about 10lbs.) She's small enough for us to pick her up and cuddle....though we may not want to. Have you ever heard a pig squeal? It's the most ear-piercing sound. So now we are the owners of two additional chinchillas, who we have named Mabel and Myrtle, a chinese swan goose who we thought Rocky was an appropriate name for this tough little guy, and a teacup piglet who we have named Charlotte...naturally. :)
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I've been busy this past week. Firstly, me and the kids spent a couple days in Toronto for some city shopping and a visit to the Royal Winter Fair. The last time I was at the Royal was when I was a teenager so I was looking forward to it and hoping to learn lots. Sadly, it was a huge disappointment. The Royal is geared more towards showing livestock as well as their huge horse show, rather than educational. At least it wasn't in the area I was interested in. I was hoping to take in seminars or workshops but found none. You see we've had discussions around the household lately about increasing our farming operation. We looked into chickens as they are my favourite farm animal but learned quickly that it is a difficult if not impossible industry to break into. They have a saying that you either inherit it or marry into it. Since neither of those options is available to us, we vetoed that plan and looked at our second favourite critter. The goats. The goat industry is slowing starting to make progress and with more awareness there is promise of it really taking off. It is just as healthy as cow's milk but is easier to digest and better for those with low tolerance to cow's milk or allergies. My oldest daughter has suffered from an allergy to cow's milk ever since she was little. After I switched from breast milk to cow's milk, she became increasingly constipated. It improved some when we brought her down to lower fat content, but her allergies remained all of her life. She was unable to enjoy ice cream, yogurt, or a glass of chocolate milk. I heard about goat's milk recently and brought some home. She had and enjoyed her first glass of chocolate milk without any side effects for the first time ever. Obviously, both she and I are sold. I've heard it also helps with those who suffer from eczima. This same daughter has struggled with eczima since she was a toddler (perhaps another side effects of cow's milk), so we are experimenting and putting her on a goat's milk diet to see if there is any results. Will keep you posted. So, anyway, we spent some time in the goat's barn at the Royal and even took in a show. The only "demonstration" we found was this guy under a stairwell milking his goat between shows. We werent' the only ones curious about what he was doing, there was a whole crowd surrounding his enclosure watching him. I think he was surprised. My boy did get a lesson on cow milking though! No matter it wasn't a real cow. And these chicks made me want white silkies just so I could colour their coats to match the season! But the highlight of the entire fair had nothing to do with agricultural at all. The President's Choice Superdogs by far stole the show and had the biggest turnout. Sorry about the bad quality but they were too fast for my pathetic little camera. Here's one of the stars of the show. Meanwhile, back on the farm, we've been busy getting ready for winter. First up was winterizing the rooster's coop. It originally belonged to the rabbits and it might very well revert back to them in the spring, but for now it houses all of our five roosters. We brought the horses in and did their feet, combed out all the birs from the field and gave them their winter deworming dose. Then the girls were next. The goats that is. They got a pedicure and also were dewormed. We are still working on rearranging housing conditions inside the horse barn as the horses will be coming in within the next month or so and at the moment one of the stalls is being occupied by Lizzie, the pig. We had built her her own pen, but she ended up chewing it nearly right through so we moved her out and put the female rabbits in it instead. I had made the executive decision to colonize all the females instead of making them each individual hutches. It's working out for us and they all get along nicely. And finally, this morning I was greeted with a raccoon hanging out near the dog runs. I set our german shepherd on him but she has grown into an old sad dog who lacks speed but grown fear. The damn critter turned and started chasing Dakota, oye! So I went inside and brought out three more of our dogs (Emma was kept inside because we're crossing our fingers she may be pregnant), and the only thing those three were good at was chasing the coon up a tree. So two hours later and with the raccoon showing no signs of leaving our property, I took matters into my own hands. My chickens wanted out to range. And my boy wanted out to play. How many people can say they've killed a raccoon? I can. Now. Living in the country isn't always pleasant.
Just call me Brittany. I went and did it again. I impulsed shopped. I blame Farm Girl. She gets an idea in her head and there is no letting go. She gets that trait from her mother. We've called this little porker Miss Elizabeth, named after a character in Farm Girl's favourite book, Pride and Prejudice. And really, something that ugly needs a pretty name to help her in any way possible.
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