Farming and Loss

My brother-in-law Charles died just before Christmas. Although he had a chronic illness, his death was unexpected and tragic. He was a young active man with a beautiful family. There were a lot of arrangements to be made as a result of his death; people to notify, the obituary to be written, papers to gather, a public memorial to plan. He left behind a lovely wife, my sister, and a beautiful baby girl, my beautiful niece Sydney. Tragic. I am sad.

My husband called me at work to tell me the angora rabbits were dead. I was speechless with what I can only describe as grief. Another loss. The dog got into the garage, where they were housed and terrorized them. The dog had been in the garage many many times before. When he goes in with me, I have him sit by the door. He knows to go "out" when told. This time, he apparently wanted to play with them. He jumped into their cage and they got out and he played with them until they died, probably from being scared to death.

I have been responsible for the rabbits, the cats and the dog for awhile. I fed them, cleaned out their cages, switched out their water when it froze, and made sure they got to the doctor when needed. Rabbits get ear mites very easily, so two of them were on medicine. I had been thinking of selling (for a very low price) the angoras for months. They are a lot of work. You should trim their fur/hair/fibre every few months. I didn't do so well at that. But they were my babies. But I thought someone else could give them a better quality of life. I always felt badly that they were in cages. But we didn't want a bunch of unplanned babies nor did we want them to be subject to predators. So they were caged. Little did we know that they would meet their demise by their big brother dog.

We have dealt with death on our little farm previously. When we acquired our first chicks, we also were going through a trial adoption of two dogs. Ginger & Spice were two lab mutts. They were cute as can be and black as the night. We had to give them back for a number of reasons, one of which is when they got lose they ran off. We are on a state highway and it was a recipe for disaster. But before we gave them back, they got into the chicken coop. One chick died and one was injured, but survived. That wasn't too bad. Then, we acquired two sheep and two goats. We hadn't had them long when my husband called me at work and told me one of the goats he found on its back with its legs in the air. I thought he was joking. He rubbed the goat and got it back on its feet and it seemed to be ok. However, the goat did die later that day. There was no explanation, the vet thought it might be failure to thrive. Everyone else seemed ok and are doing well a year and a half later. Then there were the two pigs that we raised for meat. Mark had to shoot them before we took them to the butcher. The first one went down quickly. The second one took 4 bullets (really only three since Mark missed once). He screamed and ran and finally fell. I didn't care for that, but was never close to the pigs since I knew they would be a meal soon.

Who do you call and what do you say to people when you lose a farm animal. I didn't want to call my mother. She is already scared of the dog and would probably never visit again. Do I call my sisters who enjoyed the rabbits? They are already dealing with another with the loss of Charles and taking care of the business of his estate. Do I tell my co-workers? They might not understand. So, we just deal with it.

I keep thinking about the poor rabbits who should have been safe and were completely defenseless from the dog. I am sad.