new critters

The pig has landed! We brought our little porker home today. Sunday night the farmer that owned her picked up her Mom and siblings and drove home with them, leaving poor little Pig by herself. She's pretty traumatized and spent most of yesterday running around frantically searching for them. Sort of heartbreaking. I'd feel guilty about separating her from her family, if it wasn't for the fact that if she didn't come to live here, she'd be on her way to the butcher shortly. But I feel a lot like we're living in a retelling of Charlotte's Web. Or Babe.

Several people have asked me what breed she is, but I don't have an answer. I didn't get to actually meet the farmer that I bought her from, it was entirely through a third party (the farmer just let them borrow the sow and litter for the month of October). My guess is she's some sort of cross-breed, given that she and her siblings all looked pretty different from each other. I do know she's about 4 weeks old, and that this wean was pretty sudden for her (I saw her and her siblings all still nursing hardily when we were at the petting farm on Friday). But apparently it's standard procedure to wean piglets at about 21 days, so I'm sure she'll pull through and settle in, we'll just have to be patient and give her time. The one time we let her out of her yard today, she headed for the hills as fast as she good (thank goodness for good fences, she'd still be going otherwise!), trying to nurse off of every critter she saw (NOT a popular act as far as the ponies and the dogs were concerned). I managed to get her back into her own pen eventually and she finally accepted a dinner of soaked pig grower food with electrolytes in them (the package says "for stressed piglets", and I'd say that description fits her pretty well). Note to self: don't let Pig out of her yard for at least a week. In retrospect, the transition may have been easier for her if I'd bought her a companion pig as well. Unfortunately, the boat's sailed on that one, though, as I have no way of contacting the farmer I bought her from, and pigs are very territorial, so I can't just add a pig from a different litter (if I could even find one). So she'll just have to learn to cope. Ultimately, space-wise, it's going to be better that she's an only pig when she grows into a full-sized hog.

Anyway, we didn't come home with just her. They gave us all of their left-over animal food (about 75lbs of it), a bag full of corn cobs, and a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins. And this cat:

When I bought the pig on Friday, they had told me that someone had dumped this sweet kitty off in their fields, and she'd been getting thinner and thinner, so finally they'd started feeding her. I guess she was killing rodents, but wasn't sure what to do with them (as in, eat them to survive). Obviously she'd been someones indoor house pet before being abandoned. She is a real doll, and all the little kids at the place have been carrying her around, she puts up with absolutely anything. She's much too nice of a cat to let starve in the cornfield (and the folks that run the place only lease the field, so after they shut down for the season, they abandon the place until the following year, so there would be nobody to feed her). So when they asked me if I'd do them a favor and take her, too, how could I say no?

I'm not sure what's going to happen with her ultimately, several of my friends that were with me Friday when I agreed to take her expressed an interest in her. I wormed her as soon as I got her home (which will need to be repeated over the next month or two), and fed her a couple of good meals (which of course will continue as well!). I set her up with a bed and a litterbox (we'll see if she actually is litterbox trained, I wouldn't be surprise if not, there's SOME reason someone threw her away) in our grain room until we know what her story is. I've got a vet appointment for her on Wednesday, I should know more after that. I wouldn't be surprised if she's Feline Leukemia and/or Feline Aids positive. I also wouldn't be surprised to find out she's pregnant, although in her condition, it's hard to imagine it. In the meantime, we've decided to call her Candy Corn (because of the season and her colors) for however long she's here, and if she winds up staying with us, we're all fine with that. There's always room for one more if the need exists.

Candy Corn spent the day alternately diving into any food I put before her, and sleeping soundly on her bed. She seems SOOOO appreciative to have a dry, warm place to sleep, and stopped trying to slip out the door within the first hour she was here. She'll hopefully start cleaning herself once she's feeling a little better -- she's about the smelliest cat I've ever come in contact with! And I thought the pig would be the stinky one....

Since it never rains but it pours, we also added this handsome new Katahdin ram to our sheep flock last night. He comes from Pennsylvania, via Maine where he's spent a couple of years producing nice babies. Hopefully he'll do the same for us -- he certainly lost no time getting right to work! We had a tragedy here a month or so ago -- our beautiful young ram, Apollo, suddenly and unexpectedly died (he got into a bucket of apples and bloated). Not only was the event itself upsetting, but it was just prior to the breeding season, and I was left desperately searching for a flock sire. I was lucky to locate Mars (he came with that name -- is that a really weird coincidence with the names, or what??), and even luckier to find a fellow CT Shepherd who was traveling to that same farm in Maine this past weekend and was willing to bring him down for me.

And one last addition to talk about, although we've had these guys for a few weeks now, I just haven't managed to mention it yet, I don't think. These fine fellows are a trio of Khaki Campbell drakes (male ducks). In addition to herding sheep, there are competitions for herding ducks (and cattle too, though I'm nowhere near purchasing any cows!!) that I compete in with my dogs. We have ducks now and again for me to train the dogs with, and for some of my herding students to work also.

And yes, for those of you who have farming experience and are scratching your heads at this entire thing, this is TOTALLY the wrong time of year to be ADDING mouths to feed to a farm. Yes, I'm probably insane. But then again, I'm doubting that comes as news to anyone reading this....