The Stories Untold
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." ~ Maya Angelou
It is never easy to share the downside of life on the Internet. More often than not, we tend to share only the funny, the happy, the exciting, and the beautiful parts of our lives, while keeping the sadness, the pain, the loss, and all the dark parts hidden away in corners and under rugs. This detracts from the realities of our lives, and unfortunately, I find myself guilty of doing this. The stories I am sharing below are ones that have lingered long in my heart and sometimes caused me restless nights. By telling them, I hope to let go of the burden of holding them in me for so long.
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In March 2017, we decided to do farming. We were sure that it couldn't be that hard. We had some experience since we dabbled in the business of caring for all kinds of animals ever since I can remember. The list of animals we experimented with includes, rabbits, cats, chickens, sheep, and goats. We had even bred our rabbits and sheep and ended up with baby bunnies and lambs. Of course, no one remembered that most of the bunnies died and that many of the sheep died as well, during lambing. Why did we need to focus on the negative aspects of our past endeavours anyways? We would start afresh. Maybe we'd learn from our mistakes so that we would do better, right? Wrong!
Our first year of farming was wrought with misery. Before we go on, please note that most of the time, I am referring to one main person when I say "we" in combination with bizarre opinions or outlooks. Most of us had some concerns about this whole undertaking, but there was one person who believed most forcefully that we would somehow wing it, and the big decisions were up to that person.
But enough of that. Let's get started with the tragedies, shall we?
The first thing we did once we settled into our new home was get some turkeys, chickens, and bunnies. This sounds like a good collection to start with, but when you take the geographical area and state of the barn into consideration, the doubts start crawling in.
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| Aslan (left) and Sweaty Armpits (right) |
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| Einstein |
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| Dorking |
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| Tom |
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| Sweet Americauna |
Firstly, wild rabbits are scarce because of coyotes and foxes in N------------- County. We did not know this because we were new. Secondly, the barns had been used for cattle for the last only-god-knows-how-many decades so there were no proper doors or anything because cattle's main predators are humans. 😳 We also didn't take into consideration the presence of barn cats.
Some of the bunnies ran away and became meals for the hungry predators lurking about. Others stayed, got married, had families, and then suffered grievous losses when they lost their children to the ...ahem... barn cats. The heart-broken parents died as well due to unknown causes. This was most tragic, as our rabbit population died out. The roosters lived longer because they know how to fight. Even with all their skills, a few were robbed of their lives by foxes. After that, we stopped collecting free roosters. That whole phase is now terrible to look back upon. It's like those rabbits and roosters would have lived better lives if we hadn't bought them!
Over the summer, it got worse. When the weather became warmer in May and June, we began hatching baby chicks. It was fun, and we hatched ducks, chickens, turkeys, and quails. We would collect fertilized eggs and take them to a nearby hatchery, and then three weeks later, bring home these tiny cheeping fluffballs.
We didn't exactly have a proper place to keep baby chicks, so we improvised. We put the hatchlings in a big blue storage bin that was filled with dry wood shavings, and we hung a heat lamp above the bin. The way we hung the lamp was dangerous because we didn't have a holder; we balanced it somehow on our stack of firewood. One day, someone went to move a piece of wood and accidentally imbalanced the stack. The next thing I knew, a couple of logs came crashing down right into the bin where the little chicks were living. I couldn't look because it was too horrible, but I did find out that several chicks died instantly and a couple broke their backs. They lived for a little while before succumbing to their injuries. That is one incident I try not to think about.
We had also bought a herd of young sheep that summer. The farmer we bought them from gave us one lamb as a gift; she was the smallest of a triplet set and he had brought her up on a bottle. We were very excited and have great visions of the future. But like true amateurs, we did what we thought best without considering consequences, and ended up very sad humans by the time the year was over. We let the ewes and rams graze together in one pasture, never thinking that "young" doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot make babies. Before we knew it, all our young ewes were pregnant, even the gift-ewe.
Instead of worrying, we thought that we were very lucky and would have a nice crop of lambs. We didn't realize that the lambing would begin in winter. We didn't know that first-time ewes have trouble giving birth, nursing, and being responsible for their lambs if they're under fourteen months. We didn't think that the gift-lamb was too small to bear lambs! We never considered how much work it would all be and how the cold would make everything a hundred times more difficult.
The gift-lamb had a prolapse, which caused her to miscarry her lambs, and then eventually die. The other ewes lambed alright, but didn't have enough milk or did not want anything to do with their babies. The newborns weren't very strong and kept dying one after the other. Some lived for a good while before succumbing to pneumonia, which they contracted because we didn't know about damp pens. We got really frustrated, stressed, upset, downhearted, and depressed. We were also very new with vaccines and injections, so once, five lambs accidentally got too much selenium into their systems and overdosed. That was horrific because we were feeling happy and content the night they were born and found them all dead the next morning. It was haunting. I felt bad. I felt that if I had been there during the time the shots were given, I could have prevented it from happening. But life is not fair.
At least we learned from our mistakes. Even though we lost a lot financially and emotionally, we gained a lot of hands-on experience and never-to-be-forgotten knowledge. From that lambing season, only three lambs survived and grew up to become moms themselves. One of them was my dearest Lizzie.
Her mom was sick and could not care for her, so we took her in and bottle-fed her. She was our first successful bottle baby. She was loud, tenacious, and annoying. She was spunky, and that helped her when she joined the herd. She lived in the house for a month and drove me crazy. When Ivory came along, she was a good friend to her. I loved Lizzie with all my heart. When she grew up into a young lady, she went to live on another farm. I miss her a lot and wonder if she still remembers me.
I can truthfully say that what we lost, we gained in other places. And that brings an end to today's post. I hope I shall write more frequently now that I do not have any courses to study until September. I know I have to finish Simba's story. I also want to write about our farm dogs, our cows, and our current state of affairs.
Some of the bunnies ran away and became meals for the hungry predators lurking about. Others stayed, got married, had families, and then suffered grievous losses when they lost their children to the ...ahem... barn cats. The heart-broken parents died as well due to unknown causes. This was most tragic, as our rabbit population died out. The roosters lived longer because they know how to fight. Even with all their skills, a few were robbed of their lives by foxes. After that, we stopped collecting free roosters. That whole phase is now terrible to look back upon. It's like those rabbits and roosters would have lived better lives if we hadn't bought them!
Over the summer, it got worse. When the weather became warmer in May and June, we began hatching baby chicks. It was fun, and we hatched ducks, chickens, turkeys, and quails. We would collect fertilized eggs and take them to a nearby hatchery, and then three weeks later, bring home these tiny cheeping fluffballs.
We didn't exactly have a proper place to keep baby chicks, so we improvised. We put the hatchlings in a big blue storage bin that was filled with dry wood shavings, and we hung a heat lamp above the bin. The way we hung the lamp was dangerous because we didn't have a holder; we balanced it somehow on our stack of firewood. One day, someone went to move a piece of wood and accidentally imbalanced the stack. The next thing I knew, a couple of logs came crashing down right into the bin where the little chicks were living. I couldn't look because it was too horrible, but I did find out that several chicks died instantly and a couple broke their backs. They lived for a little while before succumbing to their injuries. That is one incident I try not to think about.
We had also bought a herd of young sheep that summer. The farmer we bought them from gave us one lamb as a gift; she was the smallest of a triplet set and he had brought her up on a bottle. We were very excited and have great visions of the future. But like true amateurs, we did what we thought best without considering consequences, and ended up very sad humans by the time the year was over. We let the ewes and rams graze together in one pasture, never thinking that "young" doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot make babies. Before we knew it, all our young ewes were pregnant, even the gift-ewe.
Instead of worrying, we thought that we were very lucky and would have a nice crop of lambs. We didn't realize that the lambing would begin in winter. We didn't know that first-time ewes have trouble giving birth, nursing, and being responsible for their lambs if they're under fourteen months. We didn't think that the gift-lamb was too small to bear lambs! We never considered how much work it would all be and how the cold would make everything a hundred times more difficult.
The gift-lamb had a prolapse, which caused her to miscarry her lambs, and then eventually die. The other ewes lambed alright, but didn't have enough milk or did not want anything to do with their babies. The newborns weren't very strong and kept dying one after the other. Some lived for a good while before succumbing to pneumonia, which they contracted because we didn't know about damp pens. We got really frustrated, stressed, upset, downhearted, and depressed. We were also very new with vaccines and injections, so once, five lambs accidentally got too much selenium into their systems and overdosed. That was horrific because we were feeling happy and content the night they were born and found them all dead the next morning. It was haunting. I felt bad. I felt that if I had been there during the time the shots were given, I could have prevented it from happening. But life is not fair.
At least we learned from our mistakes. Even though we lost a lot financially and emotionally, we gained a lot of hands-on experience and never-to-be-forgotten knowledge. From that lambing season, only three lambs survived and grew up to become moms themselves. One of them was my dearest Lizzie.
Her mom was sick and could not care for her, so we took her in and bottle-fed her. She was our first successful bottle baby. She was loud, tenacious, and annoying. She was spunky, and that helped her when she joined the herd. She lived in the house for a month and drove me crazy. When Ivory came along, she was a good friend to her. I loved Lizzie with all my heart. When she grew up into a young lady, she went to live on another farm. I miss her a lot and wonder if she still remembers me.
I can truthfully say that what we lost, we gained in other places. And that brings an end to today's post. I hope I shall write more frequently now that I do not have any courses to study until September. I know I have to finish Simba's story. I also want to write about our farm dogs, our cows, and our current state of affairs.
Ellen Hamilton 💖
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