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2 February 2009
Last week proved to be one of my hardest yet. After much discussion, weighing up the pros and cons and trying desperately to find a solution I was forced to accept that 3 boars on our property is 1 too many.
Spotty arrived on the property at 8 weeks of age, destined to be pork chops at 6 months of age. He got to 6 months and it seemed all too soon to say goodbye. When Arthur arrived they became best mates and then Stanley arrived and Spotty adopted him as a little brother. Time passed and Belle arrived. Spotty had to go and I accepted the fact.
I wanted him to go live on another farm but in the end we knew he would be hard to find a home for and he would never have as good a life elsewhere as he does here.
He would go to the butcher but we would mate him with Belle first so we would have offspring to remember him by.
But Belle refused and eventually proved too much hassle to keep herself. A cantankerous loner of a sow she badly attacked Spotty and we sent her to the butcher. Spotty was bruised and sad and as I hugged him and dressed his wounds I began to see him as a pet and a friend.
Life changes though and Spotty and Arthur became enemies in an unexpected battle that lasted many hours. The battle changed both boys and Spotty started to spar with Stanley, clearly readying himself for another fight. Before long we would have to keep all 3 boars separate and out of sight from each other. There was nowhere for Spotty to go.
I accepted the inevitable and Aaron arranged Spotty’s final journey.
With Aaron home all last week I said goodbye to Spotty on Tuesday evening and with great difficulty held it together at work all Wednesday. I arrived home with a heavy heart only to discover that Aaron had tried all day to get Spotty into the trailer. Stanley got in quite happily but Spotty had refused.
My help was needed. I was absolutely horrified.
And so we walked down to the paddock and after 20 minutes of coaxing he was in and the door was shut. He bashed himself against the door to open it and I lost it. I cried so hard I struggled to breathe. Aaron drove away and I watched as he disappeared up the highway with Spotty, a lone figure in the back of the trailer.
I cried all night, only switching off the tears as I got up for work.
And so I’ve shed just a few tears since.
I cannot keep grieving as this was his destiny. Had he been sold to someone else he would have lived only half as long.
In truth, I do not think that I grieve for a life lost but more for the part I played. I feel guilty for being part of the process. It is true that it is better not to become attached to animals destined for the freezer but to raise happy animals requires their trust. And perhaps unfortunately, pigs enjoy human company and so become friends very quickly.
I know I am making a mistake spending so much time with the piglets but when I see how much they enjoy back scratches and belly rubs I believe it is only me who suffers for it in the end.
At least these piglets have a chance to live, if only for a little while.
I shall miss Spotty but as with our other animals I shall move on.
The Requests Keep on Coming
Now that we have become CouchSurfing and HelpX hosts we are being inundated with requests from people wanting to stay.
We are booked from now until the end of March with guests and are now having to say no to people.
Gwen, Helen and Emily returned on Friday and left this morning.
It was lovely to have them here for the last 2 weekends, although perhaps I have been less of a good host this weekend. In order to cope with Spotty’s departure I have withdrawn into myself a bit these past few days.
I cannot believe the amount of help Gwen and her girls have given us. They did so much around the garden and then made all our meals and did our dishes for us. Yet as wonderful as it was, I felt so guilty I insisted they stay out of the kitchen last night.
Gwen is just a whirr of activity and I felt quite exhausted seeing just how much she accomplishes in her day. Her girls are equally disciplined. Perhaps it is a French thing. I cannot imagine that I would be as perfect a guest.
But of course these perfect guests leave us with a bit of a dilemma. Now we have seen just how much we can achieve with the help of guests part of me wants to cancel our membership with CouchSurfing and just invite Helpers to stay instead. This is of course the selfish, needy part of me rearing its ugly head. I so desperately want to be a more giving, less selfish person yet it is a daily struggle in my head to accept that it is better to give than receive.
It’s not just my decision either of course. As the year passes and we receive more guests we’ll gain a better understanding of what is best for us and our property.
28 January 2009
What can I say? 2009 is turning out to be a fabulous year already.
Gwen and her daughters arrived Friday evening and Ben and Lily returned on Saturday. It was a fantastic weekend full of good conversation, laughter and good food. Without prompting, as we worked on the farm on Saturday morning, Gwen weeded our sadly neglected front garden, even potting a begonia for our front door stop. “Your house needs flowers” she said. We were gob-smacked.
Our guests helped us with building, gardening, cooking and dishes and acted like it was an honour to do it. 
Gwen has even asked if she and her daughters can return for up to a week, working in exchange for accommodation and meals.
The decision to become CouchSurfing hosts has far exceeded my expectations. Prior to joining I was feeling a strong need to give and to share with others but in a way that would not draw on finances I don’t have. This has fulfilled that need and better still, not only am I giving but I am also receiving. I hope that by the end of 2009 I can say I am a much less selfish person and that I have learnt to be more tolerant, patient and giving.
Here piggily, piggily, piggily!
I am officially pig mad. The piglets are just adorable. Having finally grown accustomed to my daily presence they now rush to see me as I enter the paddock. Four of them can’t wait to get their back scratches and belly rubs.
Georgie Pie and Con(cussion) are more wary. They don’t like to miss out on the action but still find human touch quite unnerving.
The belly rubs are quite possibly the funniest thing to watch. One starts by scratching a piglet gently down the spine, followed by a good, gentle rump scractch. Quickly move the hand to the tummy and rub. This causes the piglets legs to become stiff and paralysed with intense pleasure, resulting in the piglet falling on its side, where it just lies there in raptures as one continues to rub. Meanwhile the other piglets all standing around grunting excitably in a “Me next! Me next!” kind of manner. 
Finally, at 4 weeks of age the piglets are becoming quite curious about solid food. In fact last night Aaron advised that the piglets jumped en masse into Joy’s trough at dinner time so that he had to spread dinner into 2 troughs so that Joy could actually get to the food. 
This is a good sign.
The piglets are growing incredibly fast and despite there only being 6 of them their feeding needs are so big that Joy has lost a huge amount of weight. Although she is not unhealthily thin we have had to double her intake of food just to keep her weight steady.
If only it were that easy to lose weight for human mothers! Although it is standard to increase a sow’s food intake I wonder if her diet of fruit and veg makes her milk extra tasty. The piglets seem to feed frequently and sometimes I think the only respite Joy gets is when she is submerged in a wallow.
Phyllis is missing her sister a lot but I think that Joy really is too busy with piglets to feel the same. As yet we have not moved Phyllis back in with Joy as I cannot decide when it will be best to do so. Phyllis is only 3 weeks away from being a mother herself. Her pregnancy has gone well this time and she seems much more comfortable with the idea of being a mother.
Ducks vs Chickens
Life is not good for our broody hen. She only laid 2 eggs and has subsequently broken one. She is virtually refusing to eat and drink anything and her health is declining rapidly.
Now we have a dilemma. If she continues this lunacy she will die. Yet, she is now so unhealthy that if we were to forcibly remove her from her nest and put her outside, the other chickens would surely kill her. I feel as though our only hope is that her egg hatches next week and she returns to normal behaviour. I’m not sure she’ll last that long though.
As for the other hen, she refuses to lay. Or if she is laying she’s doing it in places we can’t find. We are now spending a small fortune on these useless, annoying creatures and getting nothing in return.
As for our ducks, well they’ve stuck around, they’re becoming more relaxed around us and have so far laid 2 eggs. The egg situation is not a major as we’re not expecting them to really start laying for another 2-3 months. What they are doing, which absolutely delights me, is slowly moving around both sides of the gully, trampling all the weeds down and revealing the young shrubs planted last year.
Like every other area we have planted, the shrubs were slowly being swallowed up by the grass and weeds. For the first 2 years we usually have to cut the grass away in order for the plants to survive but we appear to have found a solution for this part of the garden.
I had been told by various people that one of the problems with ducks is the huge amounts of poop they generate. This may be the case with a standard duck but I have discovered that a Runner Duck’s poop is in fact liquid and therefore it just soaks straight into the ground. This is fantastic. There’s no waste to clean up and we have ourselves one fast acting fertiliser.
The chickens on the other hand continue to poop everywhere but the garden, in great big globs that set like concrete. Depending on how much they free range the chickens’ appetites change daily. Subsequently, if we feed them too much the sparrows and mynahs quickly move in and consume anything left.
The ducks are now free ranging and also have fluctuating feed requirements, however their food is placed in a bowl of water. If they don’t finish their meal it sits there undisturbed until the ducks get hungry again.
Our chickens crow and squawk loudly as they roam the verandah and patio and our ducks just quack nicely at the bottom of the garden. I’ve told Aaron that at this stage I want more ducks and less chickens.
Disturbing Farming Practices
The Internet is a wonderful tool when it comes to quickly accessing answers to problem situations. Take our broody hen for instance. I flicked through a large number of our lifestyle block magazines to find information on obsessive, broody birds. Despite there being a chicken article in every issue the information provided is at times so basic as to be useless. It seems that always the advice is to take a sick chook to the vet. Which is just fine if you have oodles of money to throw away. Quite frankly we don’t. It would cost more to visit the vet than to buy a new chicken.
So of course the next place to look is the Internet. Unfortunately our connection is appallingly slow at the moment. In fact it is at times so slow it just stops. And it will stay stopped for hours. But that’s another story…
So on this occasion I looked it up at work. As with any Internet based advice it pays to check about 10 sites to find an average or common opinion. And in this case I discovered it is of popular opinion that a sick chook should be fed cat jellymeat or cat biscuits to give it a good source of protein, vitamins, minerals, etc.
Even some vets and a bird centre recommended it. That was good enough for me. And so I went to the supermarket after work and tried to choose a suitable product. There were numerous tins, packets and boxes to choose from. Talk about choice! Obviously I wasn’t going to choose chicken but what about lamb, beef or rabbit?
I looked at the ingredients listed. For each the main base ingredient was chicken. I looked at every brand and every type of packet and every one was the same. Okay, fair enough, let’s try fish – tuna or salmon, minced or flaked.
I couldn’t believe it. I must have spent 30 minutes reading the ingredient labels for every cat food product and every single one of them listed its main ingredient as chicken. I was disturbed on 2 levels. Every cat food product has what one has to assume is non-free range chicken in it. That means that if I owned a cat I would be helping to continue the torture of battery chickens even though I would not consider eating a non free range chicken myself.
Secondly, and most disturbingly of all, there are quite literally hundreds of people globally who would think nothing of feeding their sick chooks cat food, based on advice they gather from the Internet. I’ve even found duck keeping sites that suggest that cat biscuits can be added to a duck’s meal selection to increase vitamin and mineral variety.
Is it only me that remembers that the reason mad cow disease (CJD) appeared on the scene is because cows were being fed beef by-products? Now I’m not suggesting that people are feeding their poultry cat food on a regular basis but quite frankly, even once is too much for my liking.
What the hell kind of lethal human disease are we potentially breeding in our chickens? And so we may not eat the poultry that consumes the chicken products but what about the eggs? We wouldn’t eat an egg from a sick chicken but what of those eggs produced by healthy birds that get the occasional cat food supplement? Should we think twice about buying free range eggs from a farm gate? Do we only trust commercial free range eggs or are they in fact less trustworthy, as was the case with the CJD scare in cattle?
I’ve quite started to freak myself out with all this information really. Here I am wanting to make ethical food choices for myself and my animals and yet my ability to do so is severely restricted.
And so, left with little option I returned to the human aisles and bought a small tin of tuna for our sick hen. And of course I’m left with another dilemma now. No I don’t own cats but I do own dogs and I suspect if I start looking at the ingredient labels I will discover that they are all chicken based, even though I have been buying only beef and lamb varieties.
What would be even worse is discovering that there are pork products in them too. I’m actually too scared to look because I don’t actually know what an alternative option would be. We just don’t have enough livestock to provide meat for both humans and dogs. If only we could shoot all those damn rabbits on the block and turn them into dog tucker.
Catch that wascally wabbit!
The rabbits are getting cunning. They seem to have discovered that if they only hang around in paddocks with animals in then they have a better chance for survival. Subsequently we are seeing a lot of rabbits hopping around casually among pigs and sheep. We can’t release the dogs in the paddocks as they will scare the sheep, and we can’t take shots at the rabbits for fear we will hit one of our livestock. If we put traps next to burrows how do we stop curious livestock from getting caught? We can’t lay bait as a dead bunny is a yummy bunny to a dog.
There’s the run over it if you see it on the driveway method but boy those little buggers move fast. Aaron finally managed to hit one last week. He was adamant he’d killed it but we couldn’t find its body. It didn’t matter, after 2 days in the summer heat one of the dogs found it and over the following 2 days they fought over it until it was consumed, fur and all. Oooh gross! Still, I’m not going to deny them the taste for bunny.
22 January 2009
French tourists invaded our home again last weekend. Actually ‘invaded’ is probably not the right word. Filled it with happiness and sunshine is probably a better way of looking at it.
Ben and Lily arrived Friday evening, greeted, as with all our guests, by 2 very excited dogs.
From the start we hit it off. Both in their 20’s they have only been in NZ a month and are in the process of leaving Northland and heading south.
They spent 2 full days and nights with us, wanting to be involved in and help out with everything we do. They cooked us meals did our dishes and helped us build our coolstore.
When it came time for them to leave on Sunday I asked them to stay. They thought about it for a couple of hours and agreed.
I have not laughed so much in a long time. The great thing with travellers is they’re on a natural high and it’s highly infectious.
And so on Monday they asked if they could return this coming weekend for a few hours so they can help us finish building our coolstore. We happily accepted the offer of help and I look forward to seeing them again.
This coming weekend we also have a French woman and her 2 daughters staying with us so I suspect the air will be alive with French accents. Gwen, who arrives Friday has already offered to have dinner cooking by the time I get home from work. Of course I immediately asked her if she’d consider moving in permanently.
We were supposed to have more French CouchSurfers last weekend but they never turned up. In the end I received an email message to say they’d lost their phone and with it our contact details so were unable to find us.
We had Kiwi CouchSurfers due to arrive this week but they failed to commit to a date and time and then about 8pm last night they asked if they could arrive in 3 hours. I said no as politely as I could. They would have arrived while we were in bed and left after we’d gone to work. Aaron was indifferent about the situation but my feeling is we’re voluntary hosts offering free accommodation in exchange for friendship. We’re not a business. In the end there’s only so much I will put myself out for someone. The CouchSurfers were okay about it. Shit happens I guess.
We still have an Australian couple and a Welsh couple to host in the next few weeks plus friends and family on 2 weekends. I think maybe that’s all I can handle for now. I don’t like turning people down so hopefully we don’t receive any more Couch Surfing requests for the next couple of months.
Mind you, summer will be over by then so maybe requests will dry up.
21 January 2009
Only a week later and things have changed a lot on the block.
For the past week one of our hens has been sitting on eggs in her nesting box. We hadn’t expected this to happen at all and decided it would be okay if she had decided to have baby chickens. It would just mean no chicken eggs for up to 6 weeks.
However, on Sunday morning when I fed the other chickens she got off her nesting box and ran over to the food. The other chickens automatically jumped on her and started attacking her quite viciously. This shocked me completely and it was a couple of minutes before I could get the attacking chickens out of the coop. The chicken went back to her nesting box. All morning Marty and the other hen tried to get back into the coop. That led me to believe that the hen is not broody but sick.
Of course automatically I start thinking “Stuff this! I’ve had enough of chickens. I hate f***ing chickens”. Aaron rang from work and I told him what had happened. He got more upset than me and suggested I go out and chop all their heads off there and then.
We haven’t though. They’re now too old to eat so it would be a waste. I’d be happy if they all left home and went bush permanently but I know this isn’t going to happen.
What has in fact happened is that we have built a temporary shelter in the bar and rehoused the broody hen and her nesting box.
Despite the new environment the hen seems completely uninterested in food and drink. Aaron was sure she was sick and dying but she has very bright, alert eyes so I’m not so sure.
This morning I googled “broody hens” and sure enough, she’s definitely broody. Unfortunately she’s obsessive broody, which means she’ll sacrifice her health and life for her eggs. This is not a good situation. She now has to be coerced into eating and drinking and let’s just say our relationship’s not close. Tonight I am going to shove ricotta and cat food in front of her face. Let’s just see her refuse those!
It’s All Perfectly Ducky Now Darling
After nearly 2 weeks the ducks are now quite used to me and no longer run when I go to feed them. They will stand about 3 or 4 metres away and quack enthusiastically as I pour food into their container. Perhaps in another week or two they will stand next to me as I pour the food in. After that I hope that I will be able to get them to come to the top of the hill to get their dinner.
The Piglets Have Their Ups And Downs
The piglets are 3 weeks old and growing fast. Joy on the other hand is now a slim pig. Gone is the wobbly bottom and jowls. She’s actually looking quite trim. However, that’s as thin as we want her to get so now we are increasing her food intake.
Standing on your children can be hazardous to their health
Just a week ago we had another piglet accident. Joy saw Aaron come down the drive with food and started running to the trough. The piglets started running too and one got in the way and Joy stood on its head. Let me tell you, when a 200kg pig stands it hurts. When your only 3kg and it’s your head that gets stood on what results is severe concussion.
Aaron was convinced there was no hope for the little fella and that he would be dead within 24 hours. He was so upset he ate dinner and went to bed early. I stayed with the piglet for a couple of hours and I have to admit that the vomiting, loss of balance and inability to feed had me worried. However, only the day before I had Googled info on piglets and discovered a site that advised that piglets can recover quite miraculously from severe injuries.
And so I sat with the piglet inside the shed. Trying to rub his back and belly and trying to get him to drink milk from a saucer. All of which he refused.
Amazingly, during that time 3 of the other piglets took turns to look after him while the rest of the family played outside up the hill.
Eventually I decided to leave in the hope that he would sleep it off over night. But as I got up concussion piglet and his sister followed me to the gate. When they saw I was leaving they started to head off into the paddock in search of their mum. They were going the wrong way.
I raced ahead of them. “She’s not up there. She’s back up this way”. I turned and walked up and around the back of the shed. The piglets turned and trotted after me.
We found mum eating grass and the siblings involved in a boisterous piglet brawl. The 2 piglets walked through the middle of it and unfortunately concussion piglet got tackled. However, his sister guided him out and up the hill to mum. When they got to mum the little sister squeaked and squeaked until eventually Joy lay down. The 2 piggies latched on and within 30 seconds the other piglets had joined them. I pushed all the piglets to the back of mum so that the sick piggie wasn’t disturbed. He had a good feed and seemed remarkably more stable than he had when I first saw him.
24 hours later it was hard to tell he’d ever been hurt.
Filling Up at the Joy Station
Our piglets are growing at vastly different rates. One day last week we were watching the piglets.
I looked at one of the piglets as he lay down on the grass. “Oh my God. Who ate all the pies?!” Quite frankly he appeared to be a little bit on the obese side.
“We shall call him Georgie Pie” said Aaron
It had suddenly become very obvious that we have 2 large piglets, 2 medium-sized piglets and 2 little piglets.
Aaron wasn’t happy. The small piglets were too small and there was clearly something wrong.
“I don’t think there is” I said “They have far too much energy”.
“I think you need to watch them feeding”.
And so I did…
I can only be glad that spending time with the piglets is not a hardship as it meant several hours of observation.
But I found our answer.
Each time feeding time commenced I discovered that Fatty 1 and Fatty 2 docked in the middle of mum, latched on to one teat and sucked for all they were worth.
The middling sized pigs docked at the front and made use of 2 teats each.
The 2 smallest pigs docked on the back half of mum. They had between them the choice of 6 remaining teats. And therein lay the problem. Faced with so much choice it was as though the piglets had been sat down at an ‘all you can eat’ buffet. Their mouths and bodies were a whirr of activity as they tried desperately to suck from each teat in as quick succession as possible. The result being that in their haste to move on they often missed a teat. Their lack of decisiveness about which teat is best has clearly led to a lesser intake of milk than their siblings.
Not only do they have this to contend with but their constant moving and squirming can eventually annoy their fat siblings who in turn will start a mini piglet riot. The result is ears, trotters and teats flying all over the place, not to mention much squealing, and eventually Joy tires of grunting at them to calm down and she gets up and walks off leaving the piglets in a heap on the ground.
Faced with this sight I find myself unable to stop giggling. Aaron on the other hand finds it worrying. When it comes to food it’s every pig for himself and as the 2 fatties get fatter they may prevent the 2 smallest from eating.
I agree that on a bog-standard farm this may be an issue but I can’t see it turning into a major problem on our block. If the worst came to the worst, when they’re weaned we would have to place several feeding stations at different locations. It would be a hassle for us but it would mean well fed piglets.
And so I’ve shed just a few tears since.
I cannot keep grieving as this was his destiny. Had he been sold to someone else he would have lived only half as long.
In truth, I do not think that I grieve for a life lost but more for the part I played. I feel guilty for being part of the process. It is true that it is better not to become attached to animals destined for the freezer but to raise happy animals requires their trust. And perhaps unfortunately, pigs enjoy human company and so become friends very quickly.
I know I am making a mistake spending so much time with the piglets but when I see how much they enjoy back scratches and belly rubs I believe it is only me who suffers for it in the end.
At least these piglets have a chance to live, if only for a little while.
I shall miss Spotty but as with our other animals I shall move on.
The Requests Keep on Coming
Now that we have become CouchSurfing and HelpX hosts we are being inundated with requests from people wanting to stay.
We are booked from now until the end of March with guests and are now having to say no to people.
Gwen, Helen and Emily returned on Friday and left this morning.
It was lovely to have them here for the last 2 weekends, although perhaps I have been less of a good host this weekend. In order to cope with Spotty’s departure I have withdrawn into myself a bit these past few days.
I cannot believe the amount of help Gwen and her girls have given us. They did so much around the garden and then made all our meals and did our dishes for us. Yet as wonderful as it was, I felt so guilty I insisted they stay out of the kitchen last night.
Gwen is just a whirr of activity and I felt quite exhausted seeing just how much she accomplishes in her day. Her girls are equally disciplined. Perhaps it is a French thing. I cannot imagine that I would be as perfect a guest.
But of course these perfect guests leave us with a bit of a dilemma. Now we have seen just how much we can achieve with the help of guests part of me wants to cancel our membership with CouchSurfing and just invite Helpers to stay instead. This is of course the selfish, needy part of me rearing its ugly head. I so desperately want to be a more giving, less selfish person yet it is a daily struggle in my head to accept that it is better to give than receive.
It’s not just my decision either of course. As the year passes and we receive more guests we’ll gain a better understanding of what is best for us and our property.
