The heart ache of loosing animals !!

[springvalley]

I read so many on this site that have or are loosing animals, some quick, others slowly, others tragicaly. I sometimes say to mayself, get over it people, they are farm animals, deal with it. I may have gotten hardened in to loosing animals, as growing up on a farm and now being a farmer for thirty years myself. When you have had as many animals as I have and seen death so many times, I think you sometimes get acustomed to loosing a few a year. While some are harder than others to take, like your favorite horse, or a constant companion of a good dog. A few are less tramatic, when your raising thousands of pigs, to loose a few babies during farrowing, or loosing a few lambs during lambing season. I know it is very hard for some of you to loose a lamb when you only have one, or a calf you have worked so hard to get. I get it now, It is very hard when you have only one or two of something, and loose one. When I was a young boy, I bought three registered polled hereford heifers, drove half a day with my Mother to an auction and bought these calves. I built a nice twenty by twenty shed for my calves with the help of my Dad. All was good till the day I lost one, no reason, just went out one day and there she laid. I was devestated, I had lost one third of my herd. And I always, always, remember what my Father told me that day, and I still hear him saying this to me to this day. My Dad looked me square in the eye`s and said " If you don`t want to loose animals, don`t have animals", Now for a young boy that sounded a bit harsh, but it was all so very true, as good as you are, and as carefull as you can be, you are going to loose animals in your lifetime. And you can do nothing about it, it happens to us all and we loose some awfully nice animals with a bright future, but will none the less loose one from time to time. So just remember everyone, we all loose them, and it always hurts a little, and maybe alot. >Thanks Marc

[littlebitfarm]

As an Amish friend said to me "Better a loss in the barn than a loss in the house".

Kathie

[ksfarmer]

Marc; my dad said the same thing and I've heard many another farmer-stockman say, "If you can't stand losing them, don't have them". That doesn't make it any easier . I also heard in reference to losing a faithful dog "If it don't bother you, maybe you shouldn't have one".

[PNP Katahdins]

"If you have livestock, you'll have dead stock." Still hurts to lose a favorite, though, and not just in the wallet.

Peg

[gone-a-milkin]

Yes, I think that learning to face these losses when young is easier though.

That first love puppy or kitty, that is the hardest. If it happens at a young age, I think
we come out better off, in the long run. Death is a part of life. It just is.

As a mom, I have helped my kids through it. That is hard.

It is part of life and part of farming. "Get over it" ?
I dont think I would be honoring my heart, if I didn't feel that loss.

Wendy, who will always remember her first true love:
a Welsh pony named Lady.

[Danaus29]

Ds's favorite rabbit and the last survivor of our very first litter will not live to it's 9th birthday. All summer long we have been watching age and arthritis take it's toll. But the years we had with this little rabbit have been amazing and wonderful. I am glad we have had this creature sharing our lives.

[springvalley]

I have to tell you another thing that happened a week or so ago. We had two kittens left from a farm cat and my daughter had been playing with them most everyday. Well one day while moving a round bale of straw in to a calf yard, I ran over one with the skid loader. I turned around to come out of the yard, and my daughter had found it, holding it in her hands and crying terribly. I told her I was sorry, that I didn`t mean to run over him. She ran to the house crying to tell mommy. I came in later, and Mommy must have had a talk with her, as my daughter come up to me and said it`s ok Daddy, Grandma will take care of the kitty in heaven now. Well my Mother passed away in January, and after she said that you should have seen who was dabbing tears. >Thanks Marc