A Few Members of Our Herd

On Friday, the rain didn’t enter the picture till late afternoon. It came down over the mountain to the north. The winds picked up and the air cooled.

There was a pause, a holding of breath, then the goats came sprinting into the barn and the sky let loose. Dawnell ran to get in the chickens who were outside of the med center. I closed the windows and doors in the goat and sheep barn. The rain was loud on the roof. The steer stayed outside, grazing, but the sheep came in just after the goats. Everyone stood, dripping, listening to the pounding on the roof of the barn.

The rain makes the barn feels like a fort—it’s us vs. the elements. But we’ve got hay and water and shelter and we're with our herd, so here we stay.

Carrying Cassidy into the med center, Dawnell noticed he was thin. Cassidy is a barred rock rooster with a misshaped beak. The top part curves to one side over the bottom. A couple of days ago, he fought through the fence with another rooster who also lives in the med center and who he sees every day, and injured his beak. Now Cassidy's tongue can’t coordinate getting food in, and he’s drooling. 

We decide to syringe feed him. I cut the bottom off an old syringe to make the hole bigger. Trying to get the syringe into his mouth with his head wriggling is pretty much impossible. 

Thus, to Plan B: Dawnell tries making little balls with moistened mash--not unlike rolling cookie dough--and putting them in his mouth. He still moves his head in every possible direction. But once the mash-ball is in his mouth, he swallows and looks around for more. Not that he stops wiggling. How can a rooster head move like that? He's a miracle of rubbery engineering. 


After a half hour, Cassidy’s head is covered in mash and so are we. 

But he has some food in his crop. So we put him back into his cage for the night with one more bowl of mash in case he gets inspired to eat.

Night is about making sure everyone is fed and watered and comfortable and tucked in. And making sure we’re ready for the next sudden rainstorm or heatwave and our friends are too. Which may include us shoving rolled-up balls of seed-mash into their mouths so they’re not hungry while their beaks heal after a senseless fight with another rooster they were friends with the day before. 

We don’t understand everything they do; I’m sure it’s vice versa, too. Tomorrow, Cassidy will wiggle his head like crazy when we hand-feed him. But he’ll eat and be one day closer to a healed beak and eating on his own. He’s our Cassidy, so whatever it takes.