Animal Love

Anybody who knows me at all knows I love animals. Not only do I love animals, I actually prefer them to people most of the time. This little article is about just some of the animals who have been in and out of my life.

Let's start with the lead image.

That is a shot of me holding a GIANT rooster. The breed of rooster is Brahma.

Brahma chickens are gentle giants. They are incredibly sweet and have feathers on their legs and feet that make them look like they are wearing pants.

Unfortunately, our Brahama roosters were too sweet and nice. They got into fights with our other roosters and lost.

My two favorite roosters of all time were Doodle and Pertelote.

Pertelote is a character's name from Chaucer's story The Nun's Priest's Tale, one of the 24 stories that make up his classic work The Canterbury Tales.

The story's hero is Chanticleer, a rooster with 7 wives. The rooster's favorite and most beautiful wife is the hen, Pertelote.

When this gorgeous little baby chick hatched it was so colorful and beautiful I immediately thought of that tale and named it Pertelote. Pertelote turned out to be a rooster. Still beautiful, so he kept his name.

Doodle is above on the left and Pertelote is on the right.

As I was scrolling through all of my photos looking for more animals about which to write, I came across many photos of Doodle. Doodle got his name because, of the 5 Rhode Island Red chickens I ordered, 3 turned out to be roosters. I named them Yankee, Doodle, and Dandy. Yanky and Dandy weren't all that nice to me so were eventually invited into the kitchen for dinner. They did taste good!

Doodle was older than Pertelote by 2 years. Pertelote died first, though. He and the Brahama roosters fought each other to the death. It made me very, very. VERY sad to lose them, but it is the way of nature.

Doodle was so photogenic, I swear sometimes he would intentionally pose for a photo.

This will make a great painting someday. Doodle has already featured as my muse on some paintings, like this one.

I almost like the unfinished painting better than the finished painting (below).

It took me quite a long time to finish this one small painting. I never was completely happy with the finished product.

I'm often unhappy with my paintings after I have finished.

I gave this one to my local librarian who loved it right away.

Doodle is hanging on her kitchen wall to this day.

I can't help but remember my two favorite roosters fondly. But I don't only love roosters, I love hens, too. Some hens have a bit more personality than others.

Mama was one of the first hens here on the ranch. She got here even before I did.

She seemed to mother the other chickens, so we thought she would be a good mama. She wasn't actually that great of a mother hen. She would only raise one chick at a time, no matter how many hatched. And she would only raise the chicks with black feathers.

This little red hen was so funny she would fly into the window of my pickup truck and lay her egg right there on the bench seat! Silly girl. Maybe she thought I needed breakfast before going to work.

The places hens laid eggs! One would lay eggs in my chair in the garage. Another laid eggs on the roof of the house. The roof is at a pretty sharp angle and is made of tin. Every couple of days we would here a hen fly up into a tree at the side of the house and start cackling. Eventually, she would fly up to the roof. We could hear her claws scrabbling on the tin.

She would sit and lay her egg. Sometimes hens instinctively stand up after laying an egg to let it dry out. We could always tell when she had finished her task because we could hear the egg rolling down the side of the roof and hitting the ground. I had to make sure to get it before the dog did. Our dog loved to steal eggs. She'd crack them and eat them or just go and bury them. If the roof egg didn't crack on impact, I would rush out to get it.

Another silly animal I have loved is this teeny tiny baby kitten we rescued. His eyes were still closed. A friend had found a dead mama cat with babies still mewing and crying by the mama. The cat was near a dumpster behind a fast-food restaurant. When we first rescued this little kitten and fed him with a bottle, I wasn't sure he would live so I didn't want to name him. We just kept calling him the dumpster kitty.

He lived. He got huge. He never got another name. he got stuck being called Dumpster. He also loved the hens. I think more for a nice warm place to sleep.

Silly kitty! You aren't a chicken! He also loved sleeping on the dashboard of cars and trucks. Or in the back seat. One time I didn't notice him in the car until I was already driving to work. I had to bring him back home. This is how he rode home with me:

Good thing I knew the way home! I could barely see around him.

Most of you already know Barney the Barn Cat who never goes outside to the barn. Though she DOES sometimes sit at the back door and look in the direction of the barn. That's about as close as she's willing to get.

I thought at first that Dumpster and Barney wouldn't get along. But they were pretty much inseparable while Barney was young. It wasn't until she got older and fatter that she stopped hanging out with her big brother.

Barney is such a funny cat. And just chock full of personality.

Whether she is dominating her big brother by using him as a comfy couch or saying hello to a pretty silkie hen, she is definitely always up to something.

If you were to come to my house it is a strong possibility that on any given day you will find animals inside the house.

Bummer lambs and goats (babies whose mommy can't take care of them for one reason or another) are often warming up in front of the furnace or lounging around in my lap.

Injured and sick animals, too, get special indoor attention from me.

At night they will sleep in a crate. Just like human babies, they get hungry, need to be fed, poop, need to be cleaned up, and need love, affection, and play time.

I will take them outside to get to know their surroundings. (And to let them poop on the ground where I don't have to clean it!). Eventually, when they are strong enough or well enough they will go back outside. Either to their mamas or to the nursing barn/milk barn. They'll stay in the barn until they are too big to be bottle-fed. At which point they are free to join the flock or herd to be with their own kind.

I'm sure you remember JuJuB, right? She is 1 year and 3 weeks old today. She was born and immediately got frostbite. On her ears and leg and her little wattles.

I did wound care on her and she was a house goat for around three months. She is happy hanging out with her mama, my milk goat, JJ.

All of our animals have to figure out a way to get along with each other. It is a really good thing we have 30 acres on which to figure things out.

As with humans, some animals get along better than others. Some are long-suffering. Some are patient. I wonder if Big Daddy the Pygmy Goat was suffering or just patient. Either way, he would walk around with the hens on his back like he didn't have a care in the world.

What do you think? Is he enjoying himself or is he patiently suffering through all the girls using him as a roost?

Dotty the pig would barely tolerate chickens in her pen. She liked to chase them. I always said the pigs are just like dogs. Maybe smarter, though. I would love to keep a pig for a pet. Sadly (or happily depending on how you look at it) the pigs we raised, though we raised them with love, were raised for one reason and one reason only: to go in our bellies.

I can promise you one thing for sure, animals, even meat animals, that are raised and loved and cared for with respect taste much better than animals that are treated as objects or live in fear of the next beating. Love tastes better than fear.

I don't want to leave you on that sad note, so I will wrap things up with a cuteness overload.

Teeny baby Barney

Mama hen hatching out some sweet babies

Little ball of floof

All images photos by Jonica Bradley