The End of an Era

                        A few years ago, these were our ducks. A number of them were older than ten years, and continuing to do well.  Ducks are great animals. They need a clean and secure cage, a kids pool that is changed regularly, and drinking water and good quality food.  They also enjoy salad greens periodically.

                        After more than ten or even more years, some of them began to pass quietly, often in their sleep. But as these animals grew and aged, things around this farm changed too.  Back twenty years ago when we first acquired most of this land, the eight hundred acres or so, close to it or around it, was timbered, and then replanted. Many animals relocated following the timbering. However, in Virginia, wood is very much a renewable resource. Often within 15 years the pine forests are completely back, and the oaks take longer.  While my ducks were growing up, and secure in their dog kennel with a canvas roof, with wooden dog houses inside for shelter, the surrounding woods were growing and thickening.  Animals were returning to the forest, and raising families. With the heavy rains of the last couple of years, the number of family members the predators had, increased.  As my ducks aged, and got slower, and perhaps forgot not to stand near the edges of the doors which have a small space animals might use to grab them, the predators were growing in number and training their young.

                     Within the last couple of years all but two of the above ducks either died of natural causes or as meals to creative young predators.  This week, only two of them were left.  Two of the brown Khaki Campbells, Dexter and Millard, were old, but they were surviving.  They also seemed pretty good at remaining within their dog houses, in their pens, at night.  Their pens looked pretty solid to me, although we have learned over the years that as Winter approaches, hungry raccoons, hungry oppossums, can access most any enclosure.  We have also learned that foxes, both grey and red varieties, when training a group of young, can access almost anything and risk almost anything to feed their young.  So this week, Dexter was found first. A predator had grabbed for him through the very narrow frame around the door of the duck pen. The only good thing about this, is that he likely died very suddenly. Often when only one animal is left somewhere, I move them, but I wasn't sure where I could move the remaining duck, Millard, who also had some markings which suggested he was a Khaki Campbell and Mallard mix.  This morning, when we went to check on all the animals, Millard had been caught exactly as his brother had been.  The ducks lived long lives here, but are now gone.

                   We had ducks here because it was an important part of educating our five children, and because Daniel especially loved them, and got them for Easter one year when he was very small. We enjoyed them because we did occasionally make omelets from their big eggs, which are excellent scrambled or in omelets with chopped chives and cheese added to them. They also make wonderful cakes which stand very tall, when used as a substitution for chicken's eggs. When we had many extra eggs, we also cooked them and gave them as an occasional treat to our dogs, many of which are rescues and could use some extra protein periodically.  We also noticed that female ducks tended to pass before male ducks, we think due to their more complex reproductive systems.   This is therefore the end of about a fifteen or so year era of having and enjoying ducks.

                 I will miss Dexter and Millard very much, as I miss the others, but now, with the forest regrown, and the predators ready for a pre-Winter Thanksgiving meal of delicious duck, it seems foolish to have ducks here again.  We no longer have wolves here, but there are plenty of coyotes, a number of which were thinned by hunters last year.  This generally causes their numbers of coyotes at least, to swell again the following year. We also have a bumper crop of gray and of red foxes, the result of a neighbor who was licensed to breed them for hunting, and then during a flood, lost almost all of his breeding stock. We now have rather demanding gray and red fox, who will directly challenge us from time to time. We also once saw a black fox.   Possums and raccoons abound here, and so, our ducks, whether young or old, would be endangered.


                  Perhaps the kindest thing to do is to admit that the farm has changed and that poultry may not be safe here any longer.  We will miss you.

A Tribute to Beautiful and Sweet Walter

             

Walter

            I dislike giving the impression that there is a lot of death on a farm. The reality is that there is a lot of life on a farm, and wherever on Earth there is life, there will eventually be a passing. All animals, and all people eventually pass.  Of course, we try to keep them alive as long as possible, and we take great joy when they exceed normal life expectancy for their species, and are still well and enjoying living their lives.  In totality, we have been very lucky on this farm and most of our species have outlived normal life expectancy, including a couple of alpacas who died just weeks shy of their twenty-fifth birthdays !   However, there have been a few individual losses of animals earlier than normal life expectancy, and these leave us sad, hungry for more information as to how to treat these animals when they do become ill.  Even with competent camelid vets, alpacas are exotics. In the wild, they hide discomfort, birth and illness so as not to show weakness to predators. This means that even on farms, they may be feeling poorly with no such indication to their caregivers. By the time the caregivers have figured out there is a problem, the disease or disorder is well entrenched and often, according to the vet, is very difficult to reverse at that point. Often, the first indication you might have that an alpaca is in trouble, is the day before he dies.  In addition, this year on the farm, a number of animals are indeed very old, and the price of giving homes to animals forever, is that some years will involve multiple burials and multiple animal funerals.

         Walter joined us from a petting zoo quite a bit West of here, about three years ago.  He has always been a curious and loving individual. He had been a good breeder at his prior home, but we did not have plans to use him in that way.  When his fiber grew in, he looked huge, like a giant walking cotton ball, and sheering him was easy, because he stood perfectly still.  He was not a fan of having toenails trimmed, but he tolerated everything done for him.   He was sick one time, in Spring,  about two years ago when he ate some type of week by craning his long neck over the fence. It made him quite ill as he vomited and foamed at the mouth for a couple of days. Eventually, I found a vet who would come about the time the issue resolved, and we removed any weeds within long neck reach of his fenced area.  He has done well since.

       We were aware that unlike our others, Walter preferred to eat pelleted grain from a dish on the ground, and that sometimes, he preferred it to be sprayed with fresh water before eating. There were one or two episodes of choking I remember over the years.  He has always been energetic and sweet and has been a good friend to other alpacas, the occasional sheep and to our horses.

         His loss was a very big surprise to us.   He joins a large herd that we first established in the 1990s in Heaven.  I believe he has a mother and a sister still living, and a number of male and female offspring.  I believe that Walter was only eleven.  He will be missed.

Sally Ann Goes Home

Sally

        In 2004, when we moved our alpacas and our dogs to new acreage and a new barn in anticipation of the completion of a new house, one of our dogs died suddenly, the apparent result of being swarmed by yellowjackets in that years very hot Summer. Despite the fact that we actually had veterinary epinephrine, we arrived likely minutes after she had passed.  We lost our golden retriever Albert that day who was a dear and gentle friend.

       A few weeks later, a female golden labrador, who could have been a sister to Albert arrived there. She had a cheap blue collar I noted had come from the Dollar Store.  She was in no hurry to leave. We fed and watered her, and tied her as we tried to locate her owners.  I put pictures of her with an information sheet at seven different local gas stations and grocers, and since we are very rural here, I placed some as far as thirty miles from here, since so many people commute. I contacted five animal shelters as lost animals in the country often originate from surprising distances, all to no avail.  No one called us, and no one locally had ever seen her before.  We took her to the vet to get her a rabies shot. The vet didn't know of anyone missing such a dog, and eventually they put us in touch with the local pound, where several weeks later, we adopted her.

               Our youngest son Daniel always enjoyed animals, and this one year old puppy was no exception.Daniel named her Sally. In fact, she also had a middle name, which was Ann.  She was very calm, sweet and devoted. She adapted quickly to our other dogs, and a couple of months later, we had her spayed. She enjoyed our farm animals, and she never ran off. She always stayed near the kids, and she watched them carefully.

                Finally the new house was complete, more farm buildings came, and four glorious years passed. In 2008, when both my father and Daniel who was only twelve and a half died of a sudden cardiac arrhythmia, all of our animals missed Daniel desperately. Sally had a way of listening as if she understood all that you were saying. She had a very comforting manner.  In the years which have passed, Daniel's dogs have all died one by one, each of them making it to quite advanced ages. Jake, the German Shepherd died the following year. Jared, the Siberian Husky also died at about sixteen. Rosheen, the Jack Russell Terrier was in her teens when she passed, and Mark, the black labrador who had seizures, finally died at thirteen. Alvin, a tricolor hound who came to us as a rescue was said to have been twenty when he died.  All through this time, Sally hung on. She was sweet and well, and it was hard to believe that she was as old as she was.  About three years ago, during her vet visit the vet prepared me for the probability that she would probably not make it through the Winter, due to her steadily advancing age. Of course, she did.

               In 2018 Sally had a stroke, and we knew from a dog we had some years ago who also had one, that if you can hand water and feed a dog through the acute phase of a stroke that many of them will recover almost completely within six weeks. So we worked hard to care for her. By six weeks she was nearly completely recovered, and the vet started her on an eighty milligram aspirin each day. We knew her days we limited, but we cared for this sweet dog as if she were human, just as Daniel would have done had he been here. My husband worked very hard to do her physical rehabilitation, and he has videos upon videos of her walking around the farm, in all weathers, sometimes with a coat on that resembles a turn out coat for horses. The vet was astounded at her continued longevity.

             The last few weeks have been rough. She has been failing, but she has not been in pain. We will euthanize our dogs if they are in pain or if they simply don't wish to eat or be cared for any longer, but she has just been slowing down, needing assistance with feeding, and using a sling in order to stand to use the bathroom and to ambulate.  Yesterday, she wasn't hungry and didn't want water. She wouldn't take my special home brew of lemon gatorade formulated for dogs.   Sally passed relatively quickly and easily tonight at midnight with my husband and I standing beside her telling her how glad we were to have had her join our family.  She passed on to Jesus and to Daniel tonight, who now has all of the dogs he knew here on Earth, with him. There is only one more alpaca who remains on Earth that Daniel knew, otherwise all of the animals here on the farm joined us after his departure. It's hard to imagine than eleven years have passed since the day that Daniel was called to leave us.

           Thank you Sally for being such a wonderful part of our lives through joy and through sadness. Please know you are loved very much. Daniel must be thrilled to have you with him now, and you will see your old friends and your beloved kennel mate Benjamin, whom I believe are also with Daniel, and with my father, who also always loved dogs.   Godspeed, sweet Sally Ann.


        

The End of Our Poultry Era

               

These were some of the original hatchlings eleven years ago.

           The majority of the chickens on the farm are the children and the grandchildren of a mix of speedy small Bantam hens who were bred with a singular and very handsome Rhode Island Red rooster.  Bantams have a lifespan of about 5-7 and Rhode Island Reds can live as long as 10-12 years. Since it's been almost 11 years since many of these were hatched, we are losing them almost daily. We should be grateful for the fact that many of them have lived beyond reasonable expectations of lifespan, and yet losing any animal, even at end of life, is sad.

                   This week Flitter, a granddaughter of the original flock was caught and killed by a fox. Gertrude, who was found on her side twice this week, died quietly in her sleep this morning. She still looked fantastic.

                   Rather than replacing these birds, I think we will take a break.  We still have really elderly ducks, and some really elderly roosters and a couple of hens. I still have not replaced our guineas who died over the Winter courtesy of a particularly large family of red foxes, who are now eating the chickens of our neighboring farms.   Once all of them have gone, we will toss their older housing, clean the areas around their housing, build new chicken housing and fencing, and get a few just for eggs, and the enjoyment of having them.  I would love to have more guineas, but I am concerned about the foxes. Perhaps I can invest in the extra large guineas I saw advertised just recently.

               Thank you birds, for all the eggs, all the enjoyment, and for making our farm a busy and joyous place.