Bunnies, Chickens and Goats
Oh my!
Chickens
‘Ducky’ the bearded hen
It started with the Chickens. The ‘gateway animal’. I was still living in town and really wanted a pet. A dog would’ve been cool, but I’m from the country. The thought of picking up dog poop every single time? I don’t want to. If I’m going to have to pick up my pet’s poop it’d better make me breakfast first.
The original plan was to get a couple of bantams - small breed chickens. The type that are the size of a pigeon. I was going to keep them in a little coop in my house (illegally, *gasp*). They’d be adorable and lay little eggs. After some plans to go to the livestock auction fell through, I contacted a nearby farmer advertising fertilized ‘Easter egger’ eggs. I promptly got an incubator and put the 8 different coloured eggs inside.
These eggs were BIG. Eggs need to be turned every day, a step that the incubator does for you. I could tell that being so big they were only getting a half turn. So, every morning I’d carefully open it, pick up each egg and roll it 90 degrees. Since I didn’t really know how to do this I figured that I’d probably have a 50% success rate.
21 days later - 7 of the 8 eggs hatched! The 8th was fully developed but didn’t ‘pip’. The word for when a chick makes it’s first crack in the egg and begins to hatch. I’d figured I’d end up with 4 chicks, half would be roosters that I’d have to get rid of. Leaving me with 2 hens. Now I have 7 chicks. Uh oh.
Where I was living you are not allowed to have chickens and I was quite afraid of being discovered. As they grew it became very obvious that these were BIG chickens. Not my pigeon sized bantam of previous plans. So the little fluffy stowaways stayed in the basement. In a huge open topped IKEA box with lots of artificial light and an air purifier.
It was around then that the pandemic became very real. Time for a change in plans. I was sitting in the kitchen in my townhouse, pondering the illegality of poultry in the area and the conspiracies around it. I could hear three different neighbours dogs barking outside. The loud hum of leaf blowers doing the easy work of a rake. Someone walked by my window and I could smell their cologne. I held my breath, thinking that if I can smell their cologne, am I not breathing their germs?
To the property we go!
We packed up the utility trailer, the chickens into cardboard boxes (with air holes) and away we went. Watching the chickens experience the outdoors for their first time was a really sweet moment. Luckily only two of them ended up being roosters and by fall we had 5 eggs a day!
Awkward teenager phase, aka ‘pullets’
Goats
Keeping store bought milk cold was a challenge. In the winter I’d pack milk jugs into the snow, but it would sometimes thaw and go bad. Powdered milk is kind of tricky and not very good in my opinion. I started pricing out what it would cost to keep a cow but realized - they give WAY more milk than I know what do do with!
Dash, after a bath
Maybe a goat makes sense? But I HATE that goaty flavour. I was assured by some friends and family that if it’s fresh it doesn’t have that taste. I started searching kijiji. When you have one goat you always need another. They’re very social creatures and always need a friend. I got really lucky when I found Feta and Dash. Feta had ‘kidded’ that spring (twins!) and was still giving milk. Dash is a neutered male, and they were already friends. Serendipitous perhaps?
Fresh creamy milk for my coffee every day
Feta and I learned together. She hadn’t been milked before, and I’d never milked a goat! I built a little milking table for her and before long we got it down to a science. Goats are very treat driven. So, every morning Feta is SO excited for her treat - she jumps up onto the table ready for milking! It’s a fairly hassle free process really. Dash is more of a dog than a goat and a hilarious addition to the little farm.
Eggs? ✔️ Milk? ✔️ Now, for the meat.
I’m a really unsuccessful hunter. It’s embarrassing. I’ve gotten some small game. Grouse, Snowshoe hare, things like that but, nothing big. I’ve been on trips where friends got deer, but not I. Now that I’m here I’d love to fill my freezer with wild game but- I can’t depend on it. There also don’t appear to be a ton of deer here. I’ll get one eventually but, not yet.
Enter, rabbits. They reproduce fast. Are very high protein meat, produce fur, eat hay - and are delicious. The only downside is that they’re terribly cute. Most of them anyways. Big Momma is a bit scary simply because of how large she is. Curt went to the livestock auction and got 4 rabbits as a birthday present! He got me a MASSIVE doe (yep, if you didn’t know, lady rabbits are does) and a group of three baby bunnies. So we thought. Now that they’ve grown a bit, two of the babies are big bunnies, and one’s a dwarf! Or maybe a runt.
It was hard to tell their gender when they were little but - Two big females and one male is the goal and that’s what I’ve got! The little guy, ‘Bugs’ has become the first official pet.
