Feather Foots

I have waited weeks to get this photo!

I first saw this being several weeks ago on my way to the Post Office, and nearly ran off the road gawking at him. When I got home, I told my cousin that somebody up the road had a zebra in their front yard, and she said, “Oh, no. It’s illegal to have a zebra in your front yard. That animal is a zorse.”

What?

Apparently, you can breed zebras with other closely related equines and they’re all generally called zebroids. These hybrids are infertile, mainly because the zebra, the horse, and the donkey all have different numbers of chromozomes. You can create a zorse or a zonkey because they all belong to the same genus: equus. This is a 58 million year old genus! Google zorses. They come out with amazing color patterns. Some of them look like pintos, with big white patches, and then zebra patches.

We had a lot of sadness this past week. Triscuit, one of our two 13-year-old goats, died. She was a goat that had kidded many times, and Jan had milked her for years. She finally retired to the back pen, where she was surrounded by her granddaughters and great granddaughters. She chaperoned the two goats who had spent their kidhood involved in goat yoga. She was beloved by all the goats in that pen. And us. But, the vet came and euthanized her this past Saturday. She went into a serious decline on Friday, and was just miserable. This is a photo of Triscuit taken in January:

Also, Pete was euthanized by the vet on Saturday. That was a more dramatic story. Pete was a buck who never came into his hormones. It was just weird. He was the least bucky male anyone had ever seen until about six weeks ago, when his hormones suddenly came on late and all at once. His personality completely changed, and he became very aggressive, butting us, and charging the fence he shared with Jordan, our most impressive buck.

Things continued to get more and more difficult, and last week we decided that neither of us could go into his pen alone. Normally one of us would go in there twice a day to feed him and change out his water. But, if you turned your back on him for a second, he’d charge you.

Last Thursday, a class I was taking had its monthly meeting. I was unavailable at feeding time, and Jan had to feed the goats by herself. She went into his pen alone, and he attacked her, and she was afraid she wasn’t going to get out of the pen alive. She managed to get out unharmed, but she was seriously shaken. She called the vet, and he recommended euthanizing Pete.

I am really struggling with animals who just can't survive. For instance, those two premies who died in late February because their digestive systems weren't hooked up. And now, Pete, whose hormones didn't come on properly and drove him insane. I can't seem to wrap my mind around why these things happen, and it breaks my heart.

But, we moved Leroy and Roger into Pete's pen, and they are loving it. It's about four times the size of their previous pen, and has a climbing toy, and a much better shelter, where they can stay dry during the rain. It's really good to see them in there.

Anyway, after the vet put those animals down on Saturday the knacker hauled away their bodies. Since the 1800s, the word knacker has meant someone who hauls away bodies of large animals. Or someone who breaks up old ships for parts. But in the 1500s, a knacker was a harness maker. I wonder if they used to make harnesses out of dead horses who were not good to eat?

In happier news, our baby chicks are doing great. Here’s one. Can you see the feathers on her feet?

We ordered 15 brahmas and 10 ameraucanos. The brahmas are feather foots. But, we thought that they developed their foot feathers gradually, and the feathers continued to become more abundant as they aged. We were stunned when we realized that our babies already had feathers on their feet.

But, our care of the babies has evolved into a really delightful routine. They’re still living in Kat’s bedroom, in an enclosure. In the morning, I stand inside their pen and catch the babies one at a time and hand them off to Jan, who checks their butts for poop.

When the babies arrived last week, most of them had poopy butts, which Jan cleaned with wipes. Yesterday, only two or three of them had poopy butts. The book we’ve been reading about raising baby chickens said that we only have to wipe their butts for the first week or so. We’ve decided that we’ll stop checking their butts when no one has a poopy butt.

When the chicks are clean she puts them in a big bucket. When all the chicks are in the bucket we roll up the puppy pads, which are just covered in poop, and take out the feeders and the waterers. We put down clean puppy pads, refill their sustenance, and then check the height of their heater. Then Jan catches the chickens one by one, handing them back to me, and I put them back in their enclosure.

These chickens are astonishing. They are appreciably bigger every day. Here’s another chicken, also with foot feathers:

Look at the size of that baby compared to Jan’s hands. They’re getting huge! I don’t know what’s going to happen when they outgrow their enclosure. Hopefully they can be moved to their next destination. The plan is to move them to my front porch when the heat is a little less, and from there to their coop, where they will live for the rest of their lives. Hopefully we will make their lives as rich and delightful as possible!