I was late to the farm today. As soon as I got there, I helped feed the white bird girls. I pour food into their troughs and then they ignore me. So does Pebbles, the rooster--right after he darts up mid-pour to bite me on the hand. He can't resist telling me one more time not to mess with his ladies, even though I'm feeding them, which is arguably their favorite thing in the world.
When she's feeding the turkeys, Julie notices that Sammy is still limping. He's had a hock problem for a while now (the hock is kind of like their elbow). She decides an Ichthammol wrap is called for. Ichthammol looks like tar, but it draws out infection.
Julie puts the Ichthammol goo onto pieces of gauze, places the gauze around Sammy's hock and wraps it all up with vet wrap--it's like a thin ace bandage that sticks to itself. Sammy cooperates the whole time. It's always surprising how often they help us when we're helping them.
It's not that hot out and it's feeding time--which is usually turkey-chirping-crazy time, but Petunia parks herself in front of a fan and closes her eyes. She often acts odd when she's about to lay an egg. She has her rituals and comforts that we don't understand--or not yet. Maybe someday.
Time to feed the pigs. Stubby (named for his stub of a tail, seen on the right) gets up and walks to the Lazy Pig Trough, which is the one that's right outside their beds and not with the other troughs in the pig feed area. Sometimes it's really the Human Are Suckers Trough, as the pigs who don't want to walk to the feed area look at us, and we remember that this is their 10th year and 10 is really old for pigs and what would we do without them and just this once why not spoil them.
This is Oliver. You can recognize him by how his tongue is always out. Could you say no to that face? No. You couldn't.
It's a cool night, but it's damp and the flies are out en force. When Julie and I feed the steer, they're flipping their tails around to shoo away the flies that gather in battalions immediately after the tail swishes back.
Andy, in particular, gets flies on the mid-line of his belly. He kicks himself with his hind legs to get rid of them, but ends up making open wounds that really attract the flies. I rub Swat, which is a fly-repellant ointment down his belly, which is so expansive, I have to do one side as far as I can reach, then the other.
Swat is pink which seems to go well with Andy's black and white coloring. Under Andy's stomach is Dylan on the left and Elvis on the right, an unintentional framing. Did Andy kick me while I was trying to take pics of his pink Swat belly with my iPhone while kneeling in cow pies? No.
Sometimes we help the animals; sometimes they help us. But it seems pretty clear, even after a couple hours on a regular night at the sanctuary, that most of the helping is from them, to us.
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