#farmpets

[kberyldial]

For cowgirl836, spawned in the dead cat thread. A new thread where people can share #farmpet stories. Here is my first submission:

My dad traveled to the Southwest some when I was young. One time he brought me back a drake and hen mallard. He said, "these are your ducks - feed them and care for them." So I did and soon 2 ducks had turned into over 50. Didn't do anything with them. They liked me, I liked them. The dog knew that if she got a duck dad got a piece of her ***. All good. One afternoon my dad tracks me down and asks me to come with him. To the pasture we go. We proceed to find fifty some ducks dead all over the pasture in knee high grass. Most with broken necks and a bunch eaten. A fox or something had laid waste to all but TWO of my ducks - which surfaced a day or so later. In hiding I guess. I then let their feathers grow and sent them on their way. Tough thing for a 10 year old. #farmpets

 

[kberyldial]

My last submission, again pulled from the dead cat thread:

I had a cat when I was a kid. My dad backed over it with the feed truck. CRUSHED from hips down. Drug itself around for a few months with it's front legs only. Eventually walked again. Got smoked by the road grader, found him in the ditch. #farmpets

BTW - his name was Sparky #farmpets

 

[cowgirl836]

I'm afraid to offend or horrify people who did not grow up around the mentality that farm pets are only about a half step up from raccoons.

 

[kberyldial]

You think pulling in the driveway and seeing your german shepard tossing kittens 12 feet in the air for fun is going to offend people?

 

[cowgirl836]

You think pulling in the driveway and seeing your german shepard tossing kittens 12 feet in the air for fun is going to offend people?

Our lab mix and Husky have both tried to be kitten moms at some point. They were pretty gentle. Better than the one cat mother we had who literally did try to get her kidlens killed. She was a bad mom.

 

[VTXCyRyD]

Pulling a hay wagon a small kitten stopped to look at the tractor tire that was moving forward. Most cats get out of the way of a moving tire. This one chose not to.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

I spent summers on my grandparent's cattle ranch when I was a kid. They raised purebred Herefords for breeding stock, Merinos for the wool (and mutton for the dinner table), kept a Guernsey for milking, a henhouse, 1/2 acre garden. Very self-sufficient. One summer there was an untagged, older calf. Probably had some shorthorn mix in him - he sure as hell wasn't one of the breed stock. He was nearly grown, already a steer, but was as friendly as a puppy. They kept him in the pasture next to the house, but he was a Houdini and would escape and come find us up by the house or wherever we were. As long as we could keep him away from Grandma's roses they kind of ignored him. We named him Spot and had a great time with him that summer. Next summer we arrived at suppertime. When I asked about how Spot was, Grandpa said "dunno...how is he?" Yup. Spot was dinner. That was a harsh reality for a kid who was citified 9 to 10 months of the year. I mean, I knew where the steers & culls went, but I didn't have to THINK about it, you know?

 

[stormchaser2014]

I saved a ram that got its head stuck in a gate once.

 

[pourcyne]

My parents were dairy farmers and fed the cat crowd the "bad milk" (like, when a cow had mastitis). One day, my dad accidentally stepped on somebody's tail at the cat dish. Dad apologized to the cat who then snarled at him. So Dad kicked at the cat and yelled "Goddammit, I said I was sorry!".

 

[Tony]

I saved a ram that got its head stuck in a gate once.

There's a joke here somewhere.

 

[cowgirl836]

My parents were dairy farmers and fed the cat crowd the "bad milk" (like, when a cow had mastitis). One day, my dad accidentally stepped on somebody's tail at the cat dish. Dad apologized to the cat who then snarled at him. So Dad kicked at the cat and yelled "Goddammit, I said I was sorry!".

lol, I can see my Dad doing this.


And then I remember the times he says he hates cats but spent a bunch of time rigging up something to entice the young cat that fell into the pit up onto the board to walk out.

 

[VTXCyRyD]

There's a joke here somewhere.

Obviously "saved" is code for ****** because ****** gets *****ed out.

 

[cowgirl836]

We had two identical cats given to us by a super weird Orkin guy one time. They were literally mirror image tortoise shells so we named one DT and the other TD (Double Trouble and Trouble Double). TD liked to hunt sparrows at night and we were out in the yard playing when this crash from the tree occurred. TD had fallen from the tree onto a stick and it went right through the soft part of her back leg. She was yowling up a storm and my uncle went over, put a foot on her, and pulled it out. We doctored it up and she was just fine. But after that, we used the scar to tell them apart.

 

[kberyldial]

We had a all black german shepard that would make a half mile trip to the neighbors and kill one of his sheep and then run home. This happened exactly 3 times. To this day my younger sister still thinks he ran away. Same dog that killed one of our chickens so my dad wired the chicken carcass around his neck. He ran around for a long time yelping and going nuts. Never killed another chicken. #farmpets

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

Growing up the cat at the dairy farm got it's back legs cut off while hiding in the grass when they were cutting hay. Found it a day later still alive and completely insane. I chased it around with a pitchfork to get it out of the barn while the farmer got his 12 gauge. It jumped/fell down the trap door we used to throw hay bales to the lower barn. I ran down to the lower barn and was trying to find it when I heard the shotgun go off. Got outside just to see the final twitching of half a cat.

 

[cowgirl836]

Growing up the cat at the dairy farm got it's back legs cut off while hiding in the grass when they were cutting hay. Found it a day later still alive and completely insane. I chased it around with a pitchfork to get it out of the barn while the farmer got his 12 gauge. It jumped/fell down the trap door we used to throw hay bales to the lower barn. I ran down to the lower barn and was trying to find it when I heard the shotgun go off. Got outside just to see the final twitching of half a cat.

how did it survive?! We had a couple cats meet their demise that way, and they damn sure didn't make an escape.

 

[CYlent Bob]

When I was in Junior High, we got a longhaired border collie named "Skipper". He was a good dog, and he liked to ride in the back of our truck. When we would go by farmsteads with other dogs, he would lean out as if to taunt the dogs "HaHa. I'm in the truck and you're in the yard!" One afternoon, we were on our way to the South Farm and while we were going by a neighbor's house about 2 miles from our house, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the neighbor's dog reach up and yank Skipper out of the truck by his neck/collar. I told Dad about it, and he looked in the rearview and saw Skipper roll with the impact and get right up. He said "He'll find his way home, and this should be a valuable lesson."

Also, we live in a part of West Central Madison County where there are rattlesnakes around. Not a lot (I think I've seen four in 40 years, alive...more dead), but they're here. Skipper came back from a trip to the creek one day maybe during my Senior year in HS, and his neck and head were swollen as all hell. He got bitten in the face by a rattler. We took him to the vet, and the vet said that we should give him a cool place to rest during the day until his body fought off the effects of the venom. So Mom bought him a kiddie wading pool, and he would just sit there in the pool looking miserable until his swelling went down about a week later.

He got bit again a few years later, and he swelled up again. Each bite took a little more vinegar out of him, and he was pretty arthritic towards the end. Funny how he would mix it up with snakes, but I can never remember him getting sprayed by a skunk.

 

[CyStalker]

We had dairy cattle growing up and showed them in 4-H. The oldest siblings had leads on the cows and were working with them to show at the fair. The youngest and smallest brother didn't want to be left out so he begged our dad to hold a cow by a lead. My dad knowing that he was a bit to young to handle a cow told him he could, but DO NOT LET GO OF THE COW. Something must has spooked the cow, because it started running across the gravel yard......my brother (who happened to be shirtless) was being drug across the gravel, hanging onto the lead. My dad was yelling at him to let go, which he finally did, but he thought he was in trouble because he was told to not let go of the cow. That was an impressive case of road rash!!

 

[CYlent Bob]

While I was in college, one of my parents neighbors had a purebred Old English Sheepdog who hooked up with another neighbor's mongrel and had puppies. She mapped out neighbors who she thought would take care of the puppies, and drove around one night dropping off puppies on people's front porches. Mom & Dad named theirs "Jeffrey" (that was the name of an OESD that my roomie at the time had, and Dad thought the name fit) and he had a good 10 year run out on the farm.

Sheepdogs have hellacious thick coats, especially when they're farm dogs and they don't get daily brushings. Jeffrey would only get one haircut a year during June when Mom would clip him down to about 1/4" with the old sheep shears. She was the only one he would stand still for when it was clipping time. The rest of the year he had long, unkempt hair that was practically a Kevlar Vest with all those interwoven layers of hair & cockleburs.

Jeffrey hated raccoons. Hated them like Hok fans hate ISU transfers. One day when he was maybe 7 or 8 years old, a big boar coon that lived in the hollow soft maple out by the end of the driveway was slowly walking through the yard by the house. Jeffrey went after him, and the coon bullrushed Jeffrey. I think the plan was to grab his neck and tear his throat out. I wish I'd been close enough to see the look on that coon's face when he grabbed Jeffrey by the neck and realized that he was trying to bite through about 2" of natural Kevlar. The old coon didn't last too long in that fight.

 

[pourcyne]

And then I remember the times he says he hates cats but spent a bunch of time rigging up something to entice the young cat that fell into the pit up onto the board to walk out.

I have a cat who must have fallen into the pit and lived to tell about it...she showed up one day in terrible shape, so I spent about an hour cleaning her up with dish soap and water (yeah, sort of like those water birds they show after oil spills).

She now goes by the name "Stinky".