The rat war, ebb and flow

Just an update.

The many, many traps and the poison that we put down the rat holes seems to have done their job.  What does that mean, exactly?  We've depleted the rat population, not eliminated it, but at least have made a dent.

The rat holes which were re-dug by persistent rats every single morning after being closed up (with the toe of my muck-boot!) are no longer being re-dug.  

For the first time in memory, the grain that falls from Bessie's mouth as she messily crunches her daily ration has been left where it fell, rather than the stanchion being "swept clean" overnight by legions of rats.  Oats and corn left untouched, right out in the open?  Unthinkable.  The rat population MUST be waning for that to happen!

And--Rocky found a huge, dead rat outside of one of the holes, which now is not being opened fresh each night.  It was a hole where I dropped numerous cubes of poison, a new cube every time the hole was re-opened by a rat.  That rat was poisoned, no doubt about it.  (I was right there, watching for such an event as this.  As Rocky trotted proudly away with it, he had no choice but to "drop it" and then I flung the carcass over the fence.  There will be no second-hand rat poisoning if I can help it!  And, how proud was I of Rocky?!!!  He didn't bare his teeth or try to hold onto that rat.  He dropped it on command.  First time for everything.)

No barn cats or house dogs have been harmed in the poisoning attempt, much to my relief!

Now, rat enemy "Number One" is Shadow, who is doing rat patrol INSIDE the barn almost every night with me.  After hearing angry squealing high up on the OUTSIDE of the barn wall one night, and finding a literal room-full of rat nest/rat droppings with live rats running wild inside of it, Shadow will continue to LOVE her seek-and-destroy missions every night.

(Like I described before, the rats simply do not take the bait out of the traps.  Why would they, when the chickens and ducks and Bessie have done such a good job of scattering delicious grain in every direction?  I've even stopped replenishing the peanut butter/marshmallow treats in the traps, because it just doesn't work.  However.....when the rats are in a panic, or when their pre-established corridors are disturbed, they leave a trail of sprung traps and usually end up snapped in one, somewhere along the way.)

That's the beauty of taking Shadow into the barn.  She causes rat mayhem, even if she doesn't catch the rats.

One night, she found a rat behind the feed barrels and together we flung things out of the way until she caught it.  I had to finish the job with the back of an axe, while she furiously tried to dig through the back panel of a shelf to get at a second rat which was angrily squeaking behind the shelves.  She didn't get the second one, but, two nights later, a rat was in the trap next to the shelf unit.  Could have been the same one.  We either interrupted it's peaceful existence or disoriented it enough for it to dash out into on-coming traffic (so-to-speak).

Three nights ago, Jeff was out there with me.  Shadow was coming up with nothing, when we saw Spartan the barn cat peering very intently between two bales of hay.  Shadow whimpered and became frantic as she sniffed all around the bales, and sure enough, a small rat streaked out when we started moving things.  There may have been more than one, because Spartan was seen a little while later following a same-size rat to a different part of the barn.  The next morning, 3 traps were sprung along the rat-highway (the cement foundation of the barn wall where they chew holes and weaken the ancient supporting beams), and two young rats were in different traps, all the way in the opposite corner of the barn.  

Probable scenario:  Shadow and Spartan located a rat nest the night before, with half-grown rats still camping out in that safe shelter, and upset the apple-cart enough that the rat confusion resulted in two dead ones.

This morning, two smaller rats were in traps, by the shelf unit, with several other traps sprung but not containing any culprits.  My theory on this catch is that the huge parents were probably done in by either traps or poison (or Shadow!) in the past week, and the young-uns had to come out and try to forage for themselves.

I did feel sorry for one of the littlest ones.  It looked like it was sleeping in the trap, still looking a bit cute and babyish and peaceful.  The pity didn't last long, when I saw the other black eye wide open and staring at me.  Not too hard to imagine glowing red embers in the depths of those rat eyes!

So, once again, what does all of this mean?  That we've made a dent in THIS rat population.

Surrounding us are acres and acres of corn.  The soybeans in the farther fields have been harvested.  The rats from those soybean acres are no doubt sheltering in the corn fields but looking for a warm place for the winter.  The corn fields will be cut soon, and then.....  Rats from acres and acres and ACRES of fields will be checking out abandoned tunnels, loose boards, cracks in the foundation, doors that don't close all the way, warm manure piles and soft dirt that can easily be dug through.  

The rat battle will begin all over again.  I hope that what we've learned this time around will help us to keep ahead of the war, rather than having multitudes of rats breeding in our barn next year, while we helplessly stand rooted to the spot, not knowing where to start the seige against the invaders.  Summer 2013 was our example of how NOT to deal with a rat invasion, and the disturbing damage that was done because we didn't take action.

THIS time, we have to anticipate the attack and be ready for it!  Rats, beware!

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Bunnies, and the critter count

Sheila, the New Zealand rabbit doe (female), had kits this morning.  It was right on time, but stil a bit of a surprise.

If you remember back in June, she was pregnant, due to deliver, and then.....nothing.  She pulled fur to line her nest a full week too late, and there were no babies that we knew of.

In the same week she was due to deliver (last time), there was a huge storm and a third of our ancient willow tree came crashing down, not more than 100 feet from where the rabbit barn is.  The young turkeys had also discovered that they could roost on top of the rabbit cages, and were driving her crazy.  

She might have had babies and "disposed" of them, fearing for their safety.  She might have been pregnant and not given birth (her body would have re-absorbed them, strange as that sounds), or she might have not been pregnant at all.

This time, she was due today and she gave birth this morning.  She pulled out her own fur to line the nest, there were little wriggling forms moving under the softness of that fur lining....and there were two dead ones outside that wriggling mass of warm bodies.  I think I interrupted Sheila as she was cleaning up the birth and the dead kits, or I wouldn't have seen the dead ones at all.

Later today, there was one kit out of the nest box, getting cold but hopefully not too cold just yet.  I put it back into the middle of the nest.  Sheila has not let me count the babies, so I don't know what number of live ones are in the depths of her hay-and-fur nest.  She is being much more protective than Red was when her babies were first born.

But now I'm curious.

The nest right now looks exactly like her nest looked in June, when we kept waiting and waiting...and waiting.  She has packed hay in front of where the babies are, and keeps packing more in, leaving no sign of babies.  There is no trace of her fur---that's buried deep in the nest along with any live babies.   Every time I peek in at her, she takes her two front feet and pushes more hay against the wall of hay that is already shielding the babies from my prying gaze.

What I'm wondering is this:  Sheila's nest looks exactly like it did back in June, except that this time we SAW the fur-lining and live kits before she packed it tight with hay.  Maybe she DID have her babies last time.  Maybe the willow tree fell and she panicked.  Maybe the turkeys looked too much like vultures on top of her cage and she panicked.  Maybe rats came in and squeezed through the wire mesh of the other cage and took the babies.  All of those things figured into our theories about why there weren't any kits to be found back in June.

No matter one way or the other, really.  The most likely scenario is that the June kits just weren't ever born.   

I'm just going to keep a close eye on how that nest progresses and how attentive she is to the kits inside of it.  When I have the chance, I'll poke around in there and count the live ones by feel.  And then we'll wait and see if she turns out to be a good mother, or if we lose the whole nest of babies because she panics about something again.

If she loses the whole nest-ful of kits this time, we might give her one more chance.  Or we might just not breed her again.  Time will tell.

Each time we learn something new, with any of the animals we have on the farm.

Speaking of other animals:

The count for birds now is this:

--Only 10 chickens remaining, and only one of them is the rooster.  (He is the beautiful Barnevelder which hatched in Cheryl Rathe's class, probably 3 years ago!  We were going to keep his brother, too, but that one didn't last through September with all the changes in weather.)  In the spring, I will collect eggs, put them in the incubator, raise the chicks, and start a whole new flock which will never mingle with the existing chickens.  If those future chicks stay healthy, then we've successfully broken the cycle of the virus that has been in our flock for 3 years now.

--6 Cayuga ducks (the other 12 went to the butcher on Friday.  We kept the 3 remaining ducks from last year and 3 very nice ones that hatched this past spring.)

--4 American Buff geese (hopefully they will produce some babies next spring.  If not, they have been wonderful as watch-dogs, and even though they are extremely noisy when something alarms them, there have been no chickens lost to hawks or other predators this year because of the geese.)

--No turkeys left, and I can't say that I miss their constant noise and sounding off at every single bark or moo or clang or quacking or backfire or tractor rumble or door-opening or lights turning on or.....  (You get the idea)  They were also very difficult to get into their traveling cages, so I was disgusted with them by the time we drove off en route to the butcher.....  No love lost, there.

That puts our poultry count at 20 birds, total.  Not bad, when last year at this time we had over a hundred.

Rabbit count:  

Thumper, the American Chinchilla male

Sheila, a New Zealand Red doe

Red, a New Zealand Red doe

Red's 7 babies, which are 6 1/2 weeks old today

Sheila's babies, which were born just this morning

I'm guessing, with Sheila's uncounted little ones, that it's about 16 total

Cow count:

Bessie, due to give birth in 3 weeks or so

Ruby, pregnant and hopefully moving on when a buyer speaks up for her

Charming, spoken for and will be picked up in the next week or two by some friends who raise dairy cattle for beef

Sheep count:

Iris, babydoll ewe

April, babydoll ewe

Another ewe will join them for a few weeks, and then her owner will come back for her (when breeding is done on their farm) and leave a ram with our two girls for a few weeks.  With any luck, we'll have a lamb or two in May next year!

2 dogs:  Shadow the lab mix and Rocky the husky

2 house cats:  Midnight and Sly

5 orange tabby barn cats:  Spartan, Charlie, and the 3 new ones (Milo, Velcro, and the unnamed favorite of mine)

Rats:  impossible to count.

All of those critters still have to fit on 2 acres, with just one acre fenced, and it's actually working (with a literal ton of hay stored up for cows and sheep, and many trips to the feed stores for grain and other expensive food).  

Amazing!  

This winter, while the numbers are low (comparatively), will be the time to really clean and build and make things a bit more organized than what's been possible so far.  A few stalls in the barn for containing animals.  Some drywall and insulation ripped out for better "breathing" of the old barn.  Lots of chicken litter to scoop and shovel and haul out to the compost pile.  Mounds of cow manure to pry up off the dirt of the cow pen and add to that same compost pile.....

Some farms in the old Greenwood history book were described as "neat as a pin".  I don't fool myself into thinking that ours will ever be THAT organized, but it's a good thing to strive for some semblance of order.

I'll keep you posted on Sheila's little cuties.  Here's hoping that there's at least a half-dozen squirming little babies in her nest when I have the chance to count them.  :)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Miss Ruby is for sale

Well, Miss Ruby is confirmed pregnant.  The vet's comment was "Well, she has a NICE calf growing in there".  (He's always very enthusiastic).

She's 2 months along, with the calf due in May 2014.  Here's the ad that I've posted in a few on-line listings already, along with the photo above:

"Our July 2012 heifer is confirmed pregnant at 60 days gestation and is for sale.  Mother is 75% Dutch Belted, father was unregistered Holstein.  Good milk potential.  Mother is our family milk cow.

This heifer is AI'd to Bestyet Snappy, a registered Dutch Belted bull.  Snappy is known to sire "small yet vigorous" calves, for an easy first-time calving.

A heifer calf from this cow has the potential to be registered as 50% DB with the Dutch Belted Cattle Assoc.  

Dutch Belted cattle are a heritage breed, and are on the Livestock Conservancy's (formerly ALBC) "critical" list."

We'll see what happens.  

Last year, Lucy the pregnant heifer sold, but I came way down in price.  The vet was asking me about that, and it sounds like I gave Lucy away, but in reality, we had terribly high hay prices, we couldn't afford to keep 2 cows, much less 2 pregnant cows through the winter, and Lucy was going to a farm where she would be the only milk cow, and where the farmer wanted a heritage breed.  

Unfortunately, Lucy was up for sale again almost as soon as her calf was born in June of this past summer, and I don't know what happened with that.  I can't worry too much about it.  We gave her a good life while she was here, and what happens after an animals leaves here is beyond my control.  I could go crazy, holding onto these animals instead of saying good-bye and moving on.

The same will be true for Ruby, even though we hold even more affection for her than we did for Lucy (Ruby was the first calf born here).  Eventually, she will be bought, she will move to another farm or dairy, and we might wonder about her, but won't really know what has become of her.  It's probably better that way.

Bessie's new calf is due in 3 weeks or so.  The cycle of things on a 2 acre mini-micro-teensy-weensy farm means that one cow needs to move on, one cow gets to stay, one calf is raised here, and......unless Bessie's new calf is truly exceptional, we'll raise it and sell it at some point as well.

The reality is.....when we choose to keep one of Bessie's calves, that's when we'll be saying goodbye to Bessie herself.  Eventually, one of her calves will replace her, it's just reality.  

Not ready for that just yet.

Today, I'll just concentrate on getting those ads out about Miss Ruby, and we'll see what God has in store for us when the next little sweetie is born in a few weeks.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Today on the farm

Today.....

We should find out if our Dutch Belted heifer, Ruby, is going to have a calf.  It will be good news, and bittersweet at the same time.  Once she is confirmed pregnant, I will list her for sale and pray for a good buyer.  If she's not pregnant, then we watch for the signs again, and call the vet to start the process all over until she IS pregnant.

Today....

Michael (a junior in high school) is looking forward to being the "rabbit".  In a cross-country race for junior high students, that is.  In our current set-up, being a rabbit either means being a breeding adult or a young-un growing up to be dinner.  Michael announced at dinner last night that he might be "the rabbit" today, and it took us a moment to realize exactly what he was saying.  Yes, we are poor parents, to even have the other two "rabbit" notions cross our minds.

Today.....

I sat in a pile of.......sh....(shaving cream.....?).  It was not nice and clean.

Falling backwards into a mess of wet cow poo, what word would I have uttered, very loudly?!!!  I had the wheelbarrow in place, but Bessie decided to barrel through, I lost my balance, and down I went.  Sh.....!  Nice.....  The backside of my jeans are nice and crusty and might not even come clean in the wash.  No-one got hurt, which is probably the important thing.

In an effort to get Bessie's area ready for winter and for that new calf, I shoveled up 6 wheelbarrows full of poop, both from the inside of the barn and outside in their pen.  I've been working on this for more than a week, and there's hardly a dent in the amount still needing to be shoveled.  

There is an exorbitant amount of cow manure to clean up these days:

Because Bessie is inside the pen, and Ruby plus Charming are out in the pasture, Bess is outside the barn more than usual (trying to still keep tabs on where her two babies are, no doubt).  The mud and muck are getting churned up, added to, rained on, churned up again....

And I'm not milking her (her udder is in preparation to provide milk to that new baby next month), which means I'm not out there shoveling on a daily basis (I'm about a month behind in manure-moving).  

And we've had plenty of rain.  

And the pig poo was being flushed through the cow pen and out into the pasture while the pigs were still here, meaning that more moisture and solid material is out in the cow pen than there would be otherwise.

And, and, and.....that old shaving cream song was playing through my head.

Bessie had her last calf, Ruby, out under a beautiful spruce tree.  The ground under it was dry and covered in straw a year and a half ago.  Today, she would drop her new calf onto 2 inches of mucked-up manure in that same spot.  Bessie has to walk through it, bed down on it, slip and slide in it when it rains.....she picks her way across the cleared areas, favoring the spots where I've already dug and shoveled and removed the manure over the ankle-deep mess everywhere else.  :(

To be fair, it isn't as if she's being neglected, or as if we're abusing our cow by not doing a better job of keeping the manure under control.  She is well taken care of, as are Ruby and Charming.  The manure situation just took on a life of it's own while I wasn't paying attention, it seems!  

When Bruce came to pick up the pigs a few weeks ago, he described how we needed to borrow a skid-steer (?) to scrape up all of that manure, although he then looked at the pasture and wondered out loud where we'd dump it all.  Well, it's not a tractor doing the work, but me, in the cow pen, with a manure fork.  And a wheelbarrow.  Load after load after load.

And today...(despite sitting in a pile of poo earlier).....

It's a gorgeous fall day.  

The 6 week old bunnies are separated from mother Red for the first time and doing just fine. Mother-to-be Sheila (the other female rabbit) is set up in a clean cage along with the nest box, all set to make her nest for the next batch of bunnies (she's at 28 days, today, so babies should be here in the next few days).  

The sheep are grazing out in the pasture, bells jangling cheerfully on their collars.  

Turkeys are in their dog-run inside the barn, happy now that the trouble-maker tom turkey is removed from the remaining flock of 4.

Ruby and Charming are happy with their supply of hay and are not bellowing, for a change. Ducks and geese are taking a joyful bath in the turtle sandbox out behind the barn.  

The remaining 10 chickens are pecking around, finding worms and bits of grain in the old pig pen. 

Bessie is hugely pregnant and very content.

The pasture is green, the new pasture-seeds of grass and clover have sprouted, the birds are singing in the trees, the leaves are gently falling, the chipmunks are chattering in the yard.

It's all rather pastoral, like a peaceful scene from farm photos of days-gone-by.  

The day and the setting are absolutely beautiful, and  it's a great day to give thanks for the nature all around and the beautiful world that God has placed us in.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Names for the farm

For 3 years, we've tried to come up with a name for this tiny, 2 acre farm (can it even, truly be called a "farm"?!!!).  The name needs to be something that catches your attention, something that describes the farm, but also is interesting and not ho-hum, blah, or boring.  Something that can be transformed into a nice, attractive sign out by the mailbox, or a conversation starter when people ask where we live.

The first one was Jeremy's suggestion:  "Chicken Invasion".  It would have fit, especially last year when we almost topped 200 chickens/chicks at one point.  Kind of funny, too, and would be descriptive of why we started looking at farm properties in the first place.  Imagine our farm sign, with "Chicken Invasion" in big letters and a chicken army marching across the bottom or staging a war between 2 flocks of gun-toting roosters.....  We're down to less than a dozen chickens, now, though, so "Chicken Invasion" as a name is not quite so appropriate anymore.

On and off, I try to come up with a Dutch-themed name:  "Dutch Girl Farm", "Dutch Boy Farm", "Dutch Belted Farm", "Wooden Shoe Eggs and Dairy", "Dykstra's Place", "Friesland Farm"....all pretty boring.

We live near Greenwood.  It could be "Greenwood Farm" except that there are numerous farms by that same name all across the country.  Nothing original there.

We have an awesome stand of white pine trees.  Could be a nice name:  "White Pine Grove"....

Could name it for the cow:  "Bessie's Milking Parlor".  No.....

And then we hung a fly strip in the kitchen.  A bold fashion statement, hanging from the light right above the kitchen island.  A beacon for all fruit flies and house flies alike.  A focal point for the entire kitchen.  You walk in from any doorway and it's the first thing you see.  A revolting, disgusting, fly-dotted white strip that draws attention simply because of how tacky it is (pun intended).

For the past week, we've been hearing the angry buzzing of flies which have the misfortune of alighting on the fly strip and becoming part of our autumn kitchen decor.  (This is the first one we've hung in the house, by the way.)

So, introducing the newest and by far the funniest potential name for this 2 acre farmette:

"Angry Fly Farm".

 

It would certainly describe the clouds of flies that we waved our way through all summer, with the pigs and cows making their smelly messes and the flies coming to the farm in droves.....  I probably hung up about 4 dozen of those strips during the course of the worst fly-hatching weeks, and I'd bet that thousands of angry flies died a horrible death, simply by landing on those fly-strips out in the barn.

And, a week ago, when the fruit flies in the barn were so bad that they were sticking to me as I walked through clouds of them under each and every light, the mere addition of 4 fly strips caught every single one by the next morning.  One fly strip looked like it was coated with rusty-brown grains of sand, as every available bit of the surface area was plastered with angry fruit flies.

Imagine buying your eggs from Angry Fly Farm.  Opening your refrigerator to see that sticker on the end of the egg carton:  a cartoon-drawing of an angry fly, staring out at you, with the words "Angry Fly Farm-fresh Eggs" in the background.  

Or coming to pick up your fresh Dutch Belted milk from....Angry Fly Farm.  

Eventually buying honey or picking pumpkins or stopping by for coffee at "Angry Fly Farm" ("Angry Fly Honey").  

I could label all of our canned jams and jellies as "Angry Fly", or cheeses could be "Angry Fly Cheddar", etc.  :) 

Invitations for dinner could be worded "Please join us for grilled pork at "The Angry Fly Farm"....

Not sure it will stick any better than the other potential names, but we're laughing about it every time another angry fly gets stuck on that lovely decorative strip!

We're open for suggestions......

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

The war against barn rats

Photo:  A rat that Rocky caught a few months ago, after it had munched rabbit pellets all night and left it's own little pellets behind to foul up the rabbit food

There was a huge rat in a trap this morning.  It's reason to celebrate, strange as that may sound!

What we're finding is, we can't catch them no matter how many traps we put out or how much we experiment with yummy bait to lure them in.  They are clever, and too smart to get caught in a trap, especially since their network of tunnels gives them ways of sneaky travel that take them in safety anywhere that they want to go.  (They must be aware:  Why bother stepping around a trap, when you can run through the tunnels inside the walls in absolute safety?)

UNLESS:  a major disturbance is created in their expansive, barn-wide tunnel system.  Then, they seem to start scurrying around, not as sure of themselves, having to forge through new territory, and will get snapped.  They don't even seem interested in the peanut butter with a scrap of marshmallow on each and every trap.  They just get snapped on their way through, trying to find access back to their cozy dens.

We spent a good part of Saturday digging out an area next to the foundation where the silo meets the walkway from the barn.  Numerous rat tunnel entrances were dug in the soft dirt there over the course of spring and summer, Shadow and Rocky (rat-hunters extraordinaire!) had dug deep and never caught one, and the foundation seemed to have enough tunnels going under it that we wondered if it would collapse.  

The dogs could smell the rats UNDER the foundation, along the cracks where the inside floor meets the wall of the walkway.  I knew that they weren't fooled when I heard the angry squeaking below floor-level, and saw that the dogs were moving along the crack in the same way that they follow a rat that is under a board, or that is just-out-of-reach in the depths of the manure pile.  The rats were under there, and there were more than one.  Both dogs had their noses rubbed nearly raw as they tried to follow the changing locations of several rats, which were safely under the floor.  There could have been a whole family down there, and the dogs couldn't do a thing about it.  Infuriating!

So, Saturday's work was digging, setting up a "curb" form with some old boards, and pouring concrete.  It took 5 bags, just for one location. 

We had to keep Bessie away from the wet concrete.  We had to put the dogs in the house, because all they wanted to do was their usual morning task:  Locate the rat, have me move/dig/help them get at it's location, then team-work as they flushed it out and killed it.  

But it worked.  The rats are confused.  Their easy-access, summer-long tunnel system is interrupted.  Yesterday morning, a rat was in one trap.  This morning, a bigger rat was in a different trap.  The barn-cats-in-training (3 kittens) up in the hayloft got to fight over the prizes, and two more rats were out of the picture.  I have no idea how many more there are (inside the barn, outside, under, everywhere--Shadow even scented a trail that comes straight from the chicken/rabbit shed to the barn wall!).  I don't think we've even made a dent in the population.  It's a start.

As for that nice new "curb":  A rat tried to tunnel under it just last night, and didn't get very far.  It dug a new tunnel, about 10 feet away and under the milking-room floor, where there is a crack in the foundation.  More concrete to pour, and steel wool to shove into the nooks and crannies of the foundation in that area.

We're probably waging a war that will never be over.  But if we DON't wage this war, the rat population will never be controlled.  Finding rat poop in the walls is bad, but finding rat poop inside the big containers of feed is downright disgusting.  Finding tunnels dug in the dirt is bad, but finding tunnels CHEWED through the supporting posts of the barn is going to keep being a problem and could eventually mean that the barn simply collapses into itself. 

It almost makes me miss the raccoons that we had to shoot up in the hayloft.  Might have been coincidence, but.....coons eat rats, and we didn't have a rat problem in either of those first 2 years, when the coon mamas were having babies inside of the barn walls.  Which is the lesser of the two evils?!!!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

The cuteness factor.....

Photo:  Little cutie, one month old.  Have you ever seen anything cuter?

I think this is what makes it easy to fall for animals that are in our care.

Look at those big brown eyes.  The fuzzy baby fur.  The adorable appearance of this one month old bunny.  The "miniature" quality of the animal that he will become.  The emerging personalities of each one in his litter.

Of course, with chicks or ducklings, it would be cute, adorable.....chick-fuzz (rather than fur), and their dashing around to keep up with mama hen, and the way they peek out from under her feathers as she nestles in with them at night.  With sheep, cute, curly wool, big brown eyes, little-kid antics, leaping in the air and dashing around just because that's what they feel like doing.  With the piglets, it was bully-on-the-playground (but so endearing) rough-housing, and puppy-style play that would draw us in.

It helps when the animal reacts with excitement as you walk up to care for it, too, but that's not totally necessary in order for the cuteness factor to reel you in.  Chicks don't come running unless you're feeding them, and the mama hen has to OK that first.  The baby bunnies are curious, but they scatter to the corners of the cage when I open the cage door or scream in terror if we try to hold them.  Barn kittens take plenty of patience and work in order for them to even stay out in the open when you come to feed them, but....the cuteness factor is there, so we work to tame them and make them "friendly".  And it's such a nice reward for all that patience when the half-grown kitties finally come running to see you and rub up against your legs instead of peering out from the dark corners of the hay loft!

These animals really don't have much use for me except that they have come to expect that I bring the food at certain times and that when I show up, it means good things for them.  Other than that, there's no real friendship or camaraderie.

The cows might stand for a pat on the rump or a scratch under the chin, but they quickly toss their heads and look around for the fresh hay that they're expecting.  I wouldn't set out a special meal for Bessie (the milk cow) and pour our my heart to her, expecting her to patiently listen.  She would dig right in, munch her grain, and wonder why I was still there.

The pigs might love being scratched behind the ears with a stick, but their focus is on how to get that stick out of my hand and into their mouth, not on "Wow, I LOVE Farmer Laura SO MUCH!  I could spend ALL DAY with her!"  :)

It's not like a dog or a cat which would seek out a sign of affection.  

It's not like sitting down to lunch with a friend and sharing the best and worst of your week, or like worshiping in church with friends who you've known for years.  

It's really a one-sided show of affection (by the person), with a primal "what-can-you-do-for-me" reception on the animal's side of things, no matter how deeply I (or anyone else) might care for them.  

If pigs are meant to be meat, if cows are meant to ultimately provide milk (and meat), if chickens and ducks are meant to provide eggs (and meat), and rabbits are meant to provide meat.....why would I bother scratching behind the pigs' ears, patting cows on the side as I pass by them, scooping up screaming baby rabbits to hold them close, or risking a hard peck on the hand from a mama hen as I reach down to scoop up a baby chick and cuddle it?  It doesn't make logical sense to become attached to something that is just being raised to provide something for us.  Barn cats are kept to kill rats and mice, right?  End of story, no interaction necessary.

And then the question would be....where's the joy in going through this farm experience WITHOUT loving my cow, or enjoying the presence of smelly pigs, or delighting in the antics of cute baby animals (or huge pigs, for that matter)?  What if I just did the work without scratching Ruby's forehead, or patting Bessie's side where I see the calf moving inside her, or making sure that our cats stay friendly and don't become so wild that they won't approach us?  We enjoy the company of our dogs and cats in suburbia, why NOT take joy in the presence of animals that are ultimately kept and cared for to provide something for US?

Way back in the garden of Eden, God told Adam to name and care for His creation, and it seems that God meant for us to take joy in what He had created 

("God saw that it--His creation--was good").  

So, having said goodbye to the pigs and moving on..... for the next 4 weeks with the baby rabbits, the next month or so with Charming the calf and Ruby the heifer before they move on to the next phase of their lives (or otherwise), I will continue to take joy in having them here, and in their cuteness, whether or not they show any affection for me in return.  :)  

The cuteness factor......maybe it's there to melt your heart and encourage a bond with that creature, whether or not it's the reasonable thing to do!  

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/