Drop That Bucket!

*fairy dust * fairy dust * fairy dust*

See that cute little hog over there? Totally cute, huh?
And that little lamb...can it get any cuter?!
Oh look! That calf is just adorable!  

I just love these little babies! So sweet, so fun, so wonderful to cuddle and squeeze! 

Isn't it cute how they all eat out of the feed bucket?

*slap in the face*

"Hey lady, wake up!"

Yes, that was me, in a dream state...which turns to a waking nightmare a few months down the road. Why?

Because cute and cuddle, adorable and sweet, grow up to be strong and persistent. What is wrong with that? Nothing, unless you have been teaching these babies that what you are carrying in a feed bucket is theirs for the taking. Don't get me wrong; I love interacting with the little ones AND the big ones but NOT with a bucket of feed or treats in hand!

As the little ones get big, there is a major safety issue involved. They get big faster than you think and if you have taught them that food/goodies come from the bucket being held in your hand, you are going to get mobbed. Stronger and bigger can knock you down, trip you, stomp on you, injure you in a bad way. They aren't doing it to be mean or hateful, they are simply going for the goodies as YOU taught them to do.

Mulefoot hogs can go from 4-5 lbs. at birth to over 600 lbs. mature (not corn-fed fat) weight. Granted, our boar and sows are "tamed down", but they are big and incredibly strong. I know my boar adores me (hehehe) but I respect the fact that he IS a boar, with tusks and I am NOT going to be moving him around as I can with the little ones. 

Scottish Highland cattle are generally docile, but you get a bunch of them together going after a small bucket in your smaller hand and it could be a bad injury quick. They use those horns to "communicate" with each other and even with wielding my own "horn" (see the Walking Stick entry), I am going to be overwhelmed in a rush. They out weigh me by many hundreds of pounds.

Our new sheep and Stormy, all rams, are large (Stormy is about 60 lbs., the other guys are 80-130 lbs.) and came to us trained to grab grain from a bucket. When I go into the paddock to feed the hogs, they are almost invariably right there, waiting for me. So I am in the process of retraining them that their goodies will NOT come from a bucket. Stormy thinks anytime I have a bucket in the sheep pen that I have food for him.

Lesson learned: as sweet as they are, as docile as they behave, as pitiful as they may appear while looking up at you with liquid adoring eyes, don't teach them to get goodies from the feed bucket. You'll thank me later.

And now we return to our previously interrupted dream state...

*fairy dust * fairy dust * fairy dust*