What’s with giving the dogs calf testicles? Those are Rocky Mountain Oysters! Fry em up!
The year when the vet came to castrate my young horse, I was banding the male calves and lambs, and also denutting any local tomcat I could catch (turkey cone, welding gloves, grandfather’s straight razor) my husband walked around with his legs crossed a lot.
And then there was in hand breeding of horses, to turn around and find the kids sitting in the barn loft window, observing with great interest.
Keeping a dropped off elderly obese eczematous beagle bitch because she trailed my four year old through the pasture into the woods…
The girls getting their only spanking ever from their father for playing aerial kitty with small kittens, dropping them from the hayloft into a pile of chaff, to see them spread out and kind of self parachute…
Oldest girl, at 20 months, climbed up ladder to milk house roof, up second ladder to big barn roof, sitting next to the lightning rod kicking her heels (I about choked)
Getting a big lick on my arm from a big Holstein I’d raised from a calf. She had been eating poison ivy. The derm clinic took a picture and put it in an article.
In my salad days, riding a horse enough to wear out the shoes.
My friends had a goat die in the dead of winter when it was too cold and frozen to dig a hole. The goat stiff as a statue. For a few weeks they kept scaring the hell out of their Grandfather by moving him every day and propping him up in unexpected places around the barns and pastures.
Hi, this is my first post after joining - Don’t know why I picked this thread but it reminds me of this true story… My father told me about the “pets” they had while he was growing up and the various relationships across the species. My father’s family were great travellers and back in those days it was easy to travel with animals across borders.
This story has always intrigued me since my childhood.
They had about six dogs and a porcupine - all of whom were allowed to live inside the house - a leopard which they rescued in Botswana after his mother was killed, a wild hare which was also rescued after it was separated from its mother during a field fire, and a crow (unfortunately I don’t know how they came to have him) all of whom stayed outside. All of the animals lived peacefully together - except for the hare and the crow who did not like each other.
The hare was good friends with the dogs and they played together often together with the leopard who was a bit of a loner but still played together with the others, the crow was apparently quite fond of the leopard. One day however the crow saw his chance and he killed the hare. The dogs then got angry at the crow so they killed the crow. The leopard really didn’t give a shit so he just lay there watching.
In all of this the porcupine was not mentioned or maybe he only came into the picture after all of this - there is however a short tale I would like to share related to him (some people might think this cruel but I can assure you the animal was never hurt. The porcupine’s name was Adoons and he loved termites!
My father and his brothers (naughty little buggers that they were) would sometimes fill a can with termites and then present it to Adoons - Adoons would then greedily eat the termites from the can - unfortunately he never learned to stop and by the time he had finished all the termites he wouldn’t be able to get out of the can again because his tummy had grown too much… my father and his brothers would then cut open the other end of the can so Adoons would be able to breath and Adoons would have to wait until his stomach was small enough to allow for him to move again.
Not really a great story but one the family often reflects on fondly. My mother used to have to run outside very often and try to herd the chickens back into the yard. If she didn’t discover them promptly it could be quite a job as they would be spread around across several houses each way.
One day she was herding the chickens back to the back and a sheperd mix came out of nowhere and quickly assisted her in chasing all the chickens to the back. He recognized by my moms actions that the gate was the boundry and upon reaching the gate when she stopped he stopped. He layed down by the gate and spent the next 6 or 7 years of his life as a chicken herder. He protected the chickens from other dogs and cats and kept them in the yard. He was a great dog and slept in an old rusted out car. RIP Punchy!
I have one which doesn’t involve animal cruelty (unless you count me as the animal).
I don’t (thankfully) remember this, but my older sisters revel in telling all my friends when I brought them round. I was a toddler at the time (approximately 18 months old). My oldest sister was watching me outside. I was sitting on the ground, while my sister was picking some fruit from one of the trees.
We had chickens and though they weren’t there at the time, they had been there, and left some evidence behind them (hint, rhymes with quit). Me being a toddler managed to find a fairly substantial handful of chicken leavings, and being a toddler was, off course, putting it straight into my mouth! My sister was running to stop me but before she got there I had already consumed.
The goat went into labor and in a normal amount of time pushed out two kids which she and I cleaned up, and I thought she might be done so I went back to the kitchen and made up a bucket of warm water and molasses, which has all the stuff birthing goats need, like sugar, fluids, calcium, iron, potassium. They usually drink about a gallon, although they won’t touch it at other times. When I came back she was bellowing and pushing, clearly having problems, which I hadn’t run into before so I called up my goat mentor and she told me to trim my fingernails really short, scrub my hands as best I could, find some kind of lubricant, dish detergent if nothing else was handy, and go in there and figure out what was going on.
So I did that. I had some J-Lube powder from the vet supply, which makes the gooiest stickiest glop you can imagine with a little water. I could not figure out what the hell. I couldn’t find a head or a rear and the legs were way back there somewhere. Luckily there was only one kid left, so no added confusion. Ultimately I figured out that the kid’s head was turned way back over its shoulder and its legs were stretched back, so all I was feeling was a sternum. Your normal presentation is nose and front hoofs pointing out.
I had to go in with both hands and between contractions try to turn its head forward. It took a few goes and a lot of strength. Big kid. Finally I did it and the kid was delivered. It was completely limp. I cleaned out its nose and gave it mouth to mouth but it never took a breath. I finally gave up and put it in a bucket to bury later. It was about midnight. I sat down in the hay and shook from weakness. I was covered with amniotic fluid and blood and J-Lube. Then I got up and cleaned the stall up, made sure the twins got their first colostrum and the doe got her molasses drink.
Then I went back to the house to take a shower and fall asleep.
That happened two months ago. I know, it’s not very amusing. Nothing so dramatic has happened since though, except maybe when the goose with goslings attacked my dog and got her wing stuck in his collar. That was exciting, since this a big dog with a hard bite who is not at all long-suffering. However, I was able to rescue them both successfully.
In Depression-era Arkansas, every summer my grandfather made up a batch of strawberry wine for his personal consumption throughout the summer. (Okay, he might have sold some to the neighbors.) One summer, when my dad was 10, he was assigned to weed the “back 40” with his 6 year old brother. It was hot work and the boys worked up a thirst. My dad had the idea of dipping into the barrel of fermenting wine. The barrel was stored under a big shade tree and the wine tasted pretty good. In fact, it tasted so good, the boys had several dips. They returned to weeding but it wasn’t long before they were thirsty again. After several trips to the barrel, when my dad and uncle bent over to weed, they fell over drunk. This is a story the family loves to tell on them.
My cousins were a year or so older than me, but back in Hillsboro, Texas days of my fourth year here on the earth we had to bring in the cows at night.
Being younger I would lag behind, but let me tell you we never did bring the cows home to the barn at night. They would bring us home by chasing us kids all the way back to the barn hooping and hollering.
In hindsight it was a lot of fun, but at the time it was down right scary.
Me and my sweetie rented an old tumble down shack on a ranch for 7-8 years. The rancher also rented a little 10 acre pasture with a horse barn to some city folk who kept 3 worthless old saddle horses there. That family would come out most Sundays after church and have a picnic dinner with their horses, the adults sitting in lawn chairs and playing music on a little boom box while the kids ran around and played. Most evenings we’d take our cats for a walk up the dirt road the 1/4 mile to the barn and feed the horses carrots.
Not having anything better to do those old swaybacks were masters at fence breaking. The Sheriff had asked us to call if we saw them out because they had gotten as far as the paved road before and almost caused some car wrecks. One morning they walked into our yard, then up onto the porch, so I called the Sheriff’s office. Was talking to the dispatcher when my sweet started screaming, the dispatcher started freaking out, I went into the living room and one of the horses had opened up the screen door and come into the house! Looking for carrots, I suppose. Took half a dozen deputies and three cowboys for that roundup.