An Explosion of Life--and Death

Look What We Found!

We discovered Norma’s second batch of kittens by accident. I had fixed a “cat house” last year inside a moving box, putting a moving blanket inside to keep the cats warm in winter, should they need it. It remained unused until this week, when the property manager went to move it to a shelf and decided to open the top of the box.

Inside were five new kittens from Norma. And, of course, once we discovered them, she began moving them to a location, unfortunately, outside the protective fence. I cannot stop her, but I sure wish we hadn’t discovered them.

Too Much Noise

We also received two dozen guinea hens from a local farmer. He threw in several “gifts,” regular chickens, along with our order. If you aren’t aware of the noise a guinea hen makes, here’s a video. This YouTube video shows only one animal. Imagine two dozen going at once!

The small chick below was severely stressed by being with twenty-four loud, unruly guinea hens, so we took the smallest hen and the stressed chick and brought them inside this week. It only took one night for her to return to normal, and her feathers are starting to grow again. I played Tibetan music to help calm them. It worked.

This is a clear indication to me that excessive noise and the stress it causes can negatively impact your health.

Food Poisoning? Or Something Worse?

Then serious trouble struck. Maggie ate something. She had gastrointestinal and nerve issues within several days. Given that she roams the farm, we’re unsure what she ate, but we suspect it was a dead chicken. She had been a bit nuts for a week, eating everything in sight and stealing food from the other animals, even though we provided plenty of food for her.

The vet did everything possible to get her back on her feet again. After the first round of tests, the vet insisted it was not rat poison or something similar, because it would have killed her immediately. In the blood tests, only a strange bacterial infection was found. And because she was nursing, the food poisoning or bacterial infection was transferred to her pups.

When Maggie went to the vent, I brought her puppies into our laundry room so that I could watch them, identify which one(s) were sick, and take appropriate action. Both boys were sick, one very ill, but the female was affected very little. Because both boys were very greedy when nursing, they most likely ingested more than the girl, who is a picky eater.

The vet supplied dried milk close to doggie breast milk, along with canned vitamin and mineral-enriched food that I feed them every few hours. They learned me, and came to me to be held and snuggled. I knew I was creating a problem as the puppies will grow to be 150-pound guard dogs, who will then want to snuggle in my lap.

After a bath and an attempt to eat, they snuggled on a beach towel and took a nap. They smell like strawberry doggie shampoo. That won’t last long, not on this farm.

They Do Their Own Thing

The puppies refuse to sleep on a blanket or rug, but want to lie on the cool earth next to the water bowl. They don’t like being in the house and want to be outside under the trees, even in the wind, and regardless of the summer flies we are battling. Maggie, even though she is very sick, does not want to stay in the cool garage. She rests just outside the hay square we built for the pups, no longer nursing, but close by.

Beeeeeeeees!

On a lighter note, this week was also honey harvest week. Here’s a hive that we let go a little too long, and the bees ran out of room and began building their cone on the side of the hive. I’ll have more info on bees in another post. They are fascinating animals and so crucial for the world.

Baaaaaaa!

The four new sheep are free, day and night, to roam wherever they want. They are constantly finding new places out of the sun to nap. Collectively, they are the “Baaaaas” and when my husband calls for them, they come running. They are quickly growing. Next year they get a boyfriend, and—GASP—we’ll have more new animals. At some point, I’m hoping my husband realizes we will run out of room. The pink spots are identifiers (water-based paint that eventually washes off) used when my husband selected them from the hundreds of lambs at the farm.

Epilogue

I’ve learned a lot in the past month. Both the vet and the local hunters are adamant that Maggie was too young to get pregnant, and with the first pregnancy in many animals, most or all of the offspring do not live. They were surprised we still had three puppies. The large animal vet who visited the farm last week warned us in the very first minute:

“Get ready emotionally for the animals to die. This is a farm, and that’s what happens in nature.”

It is practical, real-world advice. I grew up on a farm, and one of my earliest memories is what happened to a calf when rejected by its mother. I’m used to chickens passing, but my dogs and cats? It hurts. I’ll never survive if the horses have a baby and there are problems like this.

Maggie was given a three-day treatment of shots and IVs. The vet made it clear that if she survived the treatments, all would be well. Sadly, we lost Maggie and all her pups on the second day. We sanitized everything they touched and waited to see if any of the other animals would contract whatever killed her. So far, everything is fine.

I’ve not had to watch animals die such quick and excruciatingly painful deaths. I know it’s life on a farm, but I think it’s time for a break.