We grew up on a farm and always had animals since we bought the farm. We started out with just our dog and a cat then kept adding more and more animals. We had guineas and they were mean when they had babies. They would attack you if you for too close to them and we had to watch out for them. They were cute as chicks, but ugly as they got older.
Cats....all farms have cats and we always had a ton of kittens twice a year. We had all kinds, long hair, short hair , all colors, but yellow was the main color. I hated yellow and it seemed like when people came to get a kitten, the yellow were the last to go! I sometime hid my favorite kitten. I have a picture of me playing Barbies and had a little calico kitten sleeping in the barbie bed covered up with a Barbie cover!
I was very little and remember we had an old shed and had rabbits. They were all white with the pink/reddish colored eyes.
We had a horse that had been in barrel racing and evertime we would be ready to go back in to the barn, He would turn a fast sharp turn and about make us fall off! He was voice trained and all we had to say was walk, trot or run and he would do it. He was a good horse.
We had pigs that we butchered and mine had an orange ear...so He was "Orangie".
My brother and I were old enough for 4-H, we got sheep and started raising registered Suffolk's. Those were the fun days!! We had to bottle feed some of them and one little lamb mom would tie a red bow on his neck and would walk out the long lane to meet us from the bus with this lamb following behing her. The kids thought that was cute. We had over 100 lambs and 60 ewes at the end..and they were ALL named. Sheep all have different personalities...One was Crazy Legs because she was very scared and jumpy, but she did get me a 1st place ribbon in spite of her knocking me down and leaving her hoof print on my leg! Then there was sweet laid back Candy... She was one of my first lambs I got to raise. We would go to state fairs with them and also a couple of them went to a National show. I learned how to give shots, how to trim them for shows, how to shear them. If I was to have a farm on my own, I would go with sheep!When I turned 16 and was wanting to work and date, Dad decided that he did not want to take care of our animals anymore if we were not going to be home to do chores, so he sold them all. That was sad when the last load was taken away. Dad sold all the sheep and got into raising broiler chickens for CASE FARMS and would get the chick in at 2 days old and keep them until they were 4 lbs and would go to market. Yes, I even had a pet chicken T.J., that I taught to fly to me. I would call him and out of 25,000....He would come ! He was yellow with a little bit of black feathers. When they all went to market, he was taken to a friend's house since we could not have him with the new ones. Dad sold the chickens in 2002 and moved to Iowa where he now has a huge high tech Hog farm with 4800 pigs in three barns!....I am sure if I was there in Iowa, I would find a pet piglet ! Having animal taught us how to work...Animals are not all fun and games, it takes a lot of work. You have to make sure they have food and water, and make sure they are healthy. We had to do field work, clean out pens, and make sure your fence is kept up.... but all that work taught responsibility.
