I thought it’d be fun to share a post on all of the pets that I’ve had over the years. Many of these weren’t technically mine so much as family pets, but hey, I like to think of them as my babies. Onward!
Chickens
My very first pets ever were chickens. When my family lived in PA, we thought it would be fun to raise chickens for eggs. (We also lived in town, lol). One day we went to a farm store and picked out a few barred rock beauties. A few days later, we also got some Americana babies.
While they were chicks, we kept them in our kitchen in a cardboard box. It was a dream come true for me. I loved watching them grow and seeing them every single day. I love to hold them and talk to them and feed them. I wrote my first “book” telling the story of getting and caring for them.
When they were nearly full-grown, we had to move them outside because we were getting sick from the dust that they were kicking up all over the kitchen/dining room.
It was quite an adventure owning those little guys! We accidentally got a few roosters in the mix of what was supposed to be hens. The neighbors weren’t pleased with hearing the little men crow many, many times a day. They also started to fight furiously with each other over the hens. And so it was that we sadly decided it was time to kill several of the roosters. Mr. Grey and Mr. Rock, my two favorites, were spared.
Needless to say, rooster is not the greatest meat ever. It is incredibly chewy and I sadly sat at the table that night eating the chickens that I had loved dearly.
I had those chickens for quite a few years. They traveled with us from PA to four places in Missouri and finally to Minnesota. By the end of that time, there was only one hen left from the original group. She was very old. I loved her dearly, but when we left Minnesota, we were moving back into town and really didn’t want to bring chickens. 😦 So my remaining girls went to live with my grandparents in Iowa.
Bantams
My beloved banties! Jehosheba bought me two and I absolutely loved them. (I have an obsession with tiny things). They were adorable as chicks – so tiny and small. When they grew up, they were small enough to fit in my hand. I had a hen and a rooster. The rooster was incredibly small but fierce! He would attack the normal-sized roosters (who were like a million times larger than him) and he wouldn’t back down.
I loved the little banties. They free ranged during the day with the capons, running through the grass and the woods and eating bugs. At night they would perch in a tree and sleep there. They were so adorable.
When we moved from the farm, I really wanted to take them. However, it wasn’t possible. After so much freedom, they wouldn’t have been happy in the cage with the other chickens. Roosters weren’t permitted in town anyway. So they went to good homes along with a bunch of our other chickens.
Esther
When we lived on our farm, we needed a dog to help protect the free-range chickens from foxes and other predators. We found a Great Pyrenees dog for sale. Turns out that he came with a cat as well. Nobody besides me liked the cat, and possibly for good reasons. She’d run up and down the halls at night, she scratched the furniture and rugs and would attack feet. But she loved me. The day after we got her, I woke up to find her curled up in my bed.
She came with us to our next house and she and I would spend so much time together outside on the swings, watching the birds and wondering why we couldn’t be free like they were. (Well, I wondered that. She was probably wishing that she could fly so that she could catch one of the fat, juicy birds. XD)
She was my beloved friend for a while. When we decided to move again, we couldn’t take her with us. We gave her to a lady who wanted a good companion cat for her daughter. I remember watching as they took her away. She was not happy and I was so sad to see her go.
Piglets
Also when we lived on the farm. We had two pigs named Pricilla and Aquilla. They caused lots of trouble when they were piglets, but as they grew they got very large and very fat and were happy to lay around and eat the remains of the chickens after processing days.
One December morning, just when we were about to leave for Iowa to spend Christmas with family, Nahum raced into the house saying that Pricilla had piglets but that most of them were dead. It was Pricilla’s first time being a mother and she didn’t know what to do. Most of the piglets were either trampled on or had frozen. I was so sad and thought that they were all gone. But then Daddy brought in the two survivors and I knew instantly that they were mine and that they were going to live.
We put them in a cardboard box with a heat lamp and prayed that they would survive. We couldn’t leave them at the farm alone, so we brought them to Iowa with us. I will always remember how the car stank the whole way there. But I was thrilled.
I spent the next few days attempting to feed them, keeping them warm, naming them, and talking to them. But alas, they didn’t make it. I woke up one morning and they were gone. 😭
Trustworthy
We got a donkey to help with the preditors on the farm. There were many things threatening the chickens and, unknown to most, donkeys are amazing guard animals. At the time we had a few cows that we were caring for. Trustworthy fit right in with them. He was the most amazing donkey ever. Even though he was a male who had never been fixed, he was incredibly gentle. He would come right up to us and let us pet him and ride him. I spent so much time walking through the fields with him and just talking to him. He was amazing.
When the cows left, he got lonely. He was constantly jumping the fence and running away to spend time with the horses down the road. We decided to get him some companions. We got two other donkeys – Faithful and Prudence. Trustworthy was absolutely thrilled to see Prudence. His joy didn’t last long. He and Faithful fought like crazy. Faithful was the opposite of Trustworthy. He was skittish, stubborn, and mean. We ended up selling him soon after. Prudence was shy of humans, but she eventually warmed up to us. We never rode her, though. We felt safe with Trustworthy. ❤
When we left the farm, we couldn’t take him, obviously. I loved him so much and he was one of the hardest animals to say goodbye to. He went to a good home. I believe he was trained to become a therapy donkey. He had the perfect temperament for it and I am sure that he blessed a lot of people.
Those were my pets. Since then I have gotten my beloved sugar gliders. Lord willing, they will be with me for the rest of their lives. As much as I loved all of my other pets, my gliders are my favorite. They are so sweet, adorable, (tiny) and they’ve bonded so tightly with me. They’ve blessed me in so many ways.
~Hattush
What pets have you had? Have you had any of the pets that I owned?
Comments