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November 28, 2002 - More feathered, furry friendsThe News- Review • November 28, 2002 More feathered WE HAVE BEEN TALKING about ani- mals that have shared our home with us. We not only took care of wildlife that was brought to us, but we decided early in our lives to raise chickens and started out by raising chicks in an incubator. That's great fun to watch and we usually used a big incubator but one time we had a very small domed one. Two eggs were put in it and out hatched a little black chick- en and a little white chicken — we called them Salt and Pepper. Later, when they got older and were let outside, we would open the sliding door at nighttime and they would pop in and settle down in a cor ner near the door until morning. Needless to say, they settled down on newspaper. We raised ducks at one time. They are not good parents; a mother might have 15 or 16 ducklings and they would sometimes split and go in two different directions at once without her being able to do abything about it. A duck doesn't cluck to call her young like a mother hen. Sometimes you let the hen do the raising because they are better mothers. Well, it just so hap- pened that the year our daughter got married in our back yard we had a large family of ducks. The wedding pictures show the bride in her long white dress with the family of ducks right there enjoying the attention. Another interesting animal story is about a goose. Someone, wanted to get rid of one so we had it around the place. He was a pretty good guy but he would chase people sometimes and you might have to carry a stick in your hand to let him know you were the boss. furry friend Times /Review photo by Paul Stoutenburgh We've not only helped wildlife but we've had our share of domestic animals Including chickens (like the brood above), ducks, geese, guinea hens, etc., as well as the horse, cows and sheep. They became part of the family and were One day we had a pretty heavy snowstorm with drifts surrounding the house and I had to go out and feed the chickens. Of course, Mr. Goose was always there to get his share and 1 had to get water to the cows, so I lift- ed the bucket of water up over the fence. Just when I was bending over, guess who came up behind me and, gave me a jab right in the rear end? Mr. Goose. Well, that was just a little too much because it really hurt. As a matter of fact, I had a black and blue spot where he got me! So I ran after this guy as he took off around the building. I finally corralled him and I a snow bank and walked off and left him there! That evidently sort of para= lyzed him and he just stayed there for 10 or 15 minutes. I was afraid he would die.so I finally went over and pulled him out and sent him off squawking. That was my experience with a resident goose. Besides raising chickens, ducks and pheasant chicks, I e had some guinea hens that a friend gave us. While we enjoyed them, they nevei wanted to stay at home. Everyone in the neighbor- hood got to know when the guinea hens were out ecause they visited everybody. We have also raised cows for the past 25 years. We have had Black Angus, Charolais, Herefords and our newest is a banded Galloway that looks like an Oreo cookie with black at both ends and white in the middle. Our horse Dusty we wrote about in this column is gone now and buried down by the pond along with our dogi and cats. We also had a goat for a while. Someone made an offer to our boys one night just before Christmas of a goat out in their barn. The boys were thrilled to think they could bring their father home a goat for Christmas. They went out to the barn and picked up this beautiful, little, white, fluffy pygmy goat and delivered it to me that night right in the living room. It was a great little thing, but when the person who had offered the goat found his little pygmy gone he called to tell the boys they had taken the wrong goat. Needless to say,it had to be exchange the next day, for the goat the man really wanted to get rid of was a big, old obnoxious billy goat. Now billy goats have some habits that don't make them socially acceptable, to say the least, and as soon as we could find someone who needed it more than we did, we were glad to deliver it to them. We had a sheep our neighbor farmer Pete gave to the kids. It was our horse's friend for years and wher- ever the horse went the sheep would go. The problem was we didn't know too much about sprays and Pete told Focus ON NATURE Pa Stout nburgh us never to let the sneep out It he was spraying the fields, as the spray would kill it. When we were camping in Nova Scotia one year we called home and found that Pete had sprayed the field next to the pasture and believe it or not, that little amount of spray on the pasture's greenery killed our sheep. As we were away at the time, Pete felt obligated to dig a hole and bury the sheep himself before we got home. It goes to show the potency of some of these sprays that people use without realizing how harmful they can be. It was a great animal and every time the horse got out the sheep would come to the house and "baa" and "baa" until we went out and saw what the problem was and brought the horse back to the corral. It was too bad we lost that sheep; it was a good companion to Dusty. Some animals and birds didn't stay long with us; usually an overnight was all they needed. Then the next morn- ing we let them go or if they needed more care we would take them to bet- `Guess who came up behind me and gave me a jab right in the rear end ?' ter quarters. We were called about a barn owl that got caught in an ever- green tree when it blew over in a storm. Then there was a great horned owl that probably hit a wire while fly- ing at night and a little screech owl that got caught in the radiator of a car. Another little screech owl that turned out to be okay we found in the hollow of a tree that had been cut down. They all got the care they need- ed and were let go eventually. There also was a red - tailed hawk with a broken wing that we found on the Long Island Expressway and took care of for a while. Today we have given up trying to play mother to the wildlife we come across. The reason is we have very good wildlife rehabilita- tors and veterinarians who know how to take care of them much better than we do. There were all kinds of turtles that stayed for a day or longer. What bet- ter way for young people to learn about wildlife than to see it up close. (But remember, all wildlife needs to be returned to its original habitat.) We've had chameleons that changed color as they moved from one back- ground color to another. They would blend in so well it was hard to find them sometimes. There were also sala- manders and newts and frogs that spent time with us. We would almost always have a child or grandchild interested in going down to the pond in the spring to try to catch the small frogs (peepers). It took time but was well worthwhile. You had to overlook the mud and water that came into the house along with the jar and prize in it, but then through the night you could hear that lovely call of spring as the peeper serenaded you to sleep.