Painful Goodbyes

When we first moved to our large lifestyle block, we had the typical dreams of owning a menagerie of animals, sheep, a pig, a cow or two and if we farmed for a living and had some experience, we may have gone down this route but with us both having full time jobs we neither had the time or skill to do it justice.

Through no choice of our own we had already dipped our big toe in the farm animal waters with the four hens (one red shaver and three bantams), that came with the house courtesy of the previous owner who left them behind. The hens were locked up in a coop with a small run when we first arrived and seemed a bit depressed, sitting on their nest boxes all day with droopy and pale rubber gloves on their heads (those with the appropriate knowledge of chicken anatomy will know these as a comb and not a rubber glove which is terminology taken from the moron’s book of animal husbandry).

So, we got to work extending and renovating their coop with new perches made of branches, new nest boxes, fresh bedding, new water troughs and started opening the door to the coop so that the hens could wander around the paddock and woods freely during the day. This worked a treat and in no time at all they went from depressed to happy, chatty, industrious hens.

Chickens… The gateway drug to farming!

We were gifted a beautiful Silkie rooster by our neighbours which seemed like a good idea at the time until the hens got broody and started laying their eggs in the woods and sitting on them! Hens are Ninja level experts in concealment and camouflage, and finding their eggs became like an epic hidden objects game or game of where’s wally, most of the time we would find them but occasionally a hen would slip through the net and return to the coop with a chick or two!

We decided that our chickens were about as close to farming as we wanted to get, that is until we heard about a nearby elderly farmer who was downsizing and moving to a retirement village and was looking to rehome her five Nubian goats.

We had a large lifestyle block and even with the chickens had enough room for one or two goats to roam happily, we thought they would be a rewarding and entertaining addition to our family so headed off down the road to make enquiries.

We arrived fully anticipating rehoming one or two of the five goats but soon realised that they were being sold as a package deal. We were adamant that we did not want five goats! We had no experience in rearing them and could learn to manage a couple but when the owner mentioned that people had knocked on her door asking to buy them for meat it was a done deal, the guilt gnawed at us, and we ended up walking away with all five! We got played!!

All you need is love and goats, you definitely need goats!

Harry, Sid, Matilda, Gertie and Tallulah became very welcome additions to our family, but we had the shock of our lives when within a couple of months of the goats settling in, we went down to their paddock with some tasty treats and to administer scratches between their horns (which they loved) and found a new-born kid in the goat shed! What the heck! Do storks deliver goats? We thought the males had been neutered!

Harry and Sid had in fact been neutered but unbeknown to us one of the does had been up to shenanigans with a wild goat and had consequently come to us pregnant and so, our five Nubian goats became six and our little boy Lucky joined the family.

We got to spend nine amazing years with our loving, cheeky and mischievous Nubians, and they truly were a delight, they kept us entertained and fit especially when drenching and hoof trimming rolled around and we had to coral them all, catching and holding a 70-80kg goat with large pointy things on the top of its head is no mean feat!

Whilst we were lucky enough to be able to take our domestic pets with us to Canada our beloved goats and chickens would not be making the journey.

Once we knew we were immigrating we tried to hold off rehoming our chickens and goats for as long as possible, just the thought of letting them go broke our heart but as time marched on, we could not delay the inevitable. The goats would be the hardest to rehome, so we made the decision to try and find them their forever homes first.

Angels in gumboots!

We needed to find them someone who would love them as much as we did and would provide them a safe forever home and not tie them up by the roadside or worse use them for meat.

We put the word out in our local farming community to see if anyone suitable would be interested in rehoming them and whilst so many people commented about how beautiful they were no one was able to take them. We were then contacted by an angel of a woman called Sally who founded the Franklin Farm Sanctuary Home | Franklin Farm Sanctuary

Sally whose mission is to save animals and educate the public offered to foster our goats while she found them a suitable home and with the Sanctuary being located just down the road it seemed the best and least stressful way to find them their forever home. With the arrangements made we made the most of our final days and then hours with them.

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. – A.A.Milne (Winnie the Pooh)

Even typing about saying goodbye to them makes my eyes water (okay that is an understatement … Niagara Falls is a more fitting description), rounding them all up, taking the short drive to the Sanctuary and releasing them into the temporary paddock was traumatic and distressing for all of us, and the guilt of feeling like we abandoned them or let them down is something that will always live with us.

We did however give them an amazing nine years and did what we could to ensure that their future would be safe and happy, and we will have to console ourselves with that.

Our goats remained with Sally at the Sanctuary for a couple of months where they were able to settle in and make new goat and sheep friends, we were able to visit them often which allowed us to slowly let them go knowing they were going to be okay.

We tried to do as much to help as possible by way of a donation, giving Sally our portable electric fence, fence stays and tape, drench, feed, hay, and anything else Sally might find a use for. We were not going to need these things and we would much rather it go to Sally than be sold it still felt like it was not enough, and we wished we could have done more.

It did not take long before Sally had found them a new loving home on the Awhitu Peninsula which is located among the beautiful rolling hills with views of the ocean and even better news was that they were all going to stay together as a family. Our goats got their happy ending but there are so many farm animals out there who are not so fortunate.

We have the utmost admiration for Sally and those other likeminded animal welfare warriors who found sanctuaries and charities, they are truly the most amazing and altruistic people you will meet, giving all their time, and working so hard to save lives and educate for little or no reward other than the love of what they do.

Our call to action would be to ask you to read Sally’s website, blogs and to support your local sanctuaries/charities, they rely on our donations, and on people volunteering, providing homes for animals, providing resources, and doing the right thing, if we all do our little bit, we can make a difference.

Goodbye may seem forever, farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be. – Walt Disney