Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved nothing more than animals and babies. This girl felt she fit in nowhere better than out among the horses, dogs, cats, or cattle. She spent her childhood and adolescent life being uprooted and moving from state to state and town to town, and spent most of her days daydreaming and planning for the future. In another life she might have different aspirations, but for this one all she wanted was to fall in love, get married, and buy a house... not just any house though, she wanted a ranch.
In case you can't tell I was that little girl.
I grew up and played with many ideas of what I wanted to do with my life and "be when I grow up", in fact I'm still playing with ideas of a future career. There are some things that never changed: I wanted to get married, buy a house, and start a family.
There are also some things that did change!
My husband is many things, but he is not a country boy! Therefore my dreams of buying a hobby ranch in the country didn't match up with what he wanted. Our compromise was living outside of city limits but near the city and on a small lot, where I could have whatever would fit!
Since my husband has been a dear enough to let me get and try different animals I have learned something about myself: I'm not a country girl! I don't have what it takes to be a "cowgirl" or however you want to put it. Neither my husband or I can cause harm to any of our animals even if its for their own good like shots, we just don't have the stomach to hold them down while they panic. Therefore I'm putting the dream of that farm life behind me!
Since buying this house we have tried numberous different animals:
Thats Right! We have tried Ducks, Chicks, Quail, Rabbits, and even goats!
Of the 5 animals we tried to incorporate into our lives there are only 2 that we will be keeping. We already got rid of the Quail, I blogged about that. The goats we had for about a week. When we bought them we didn't realize the mama was sick AND loosing an eye. They hadn't been cared for very well and for being first time goat owners and not having cared for a similar animal we decided to sell to someone who knew what they were doing. We loved her and the kids well we had them though!
The rabbits have been fun! They are sweet and I understand why they are kept as pets, we however got them for food! They are easy to raise, breed like rabbits, cheap, and the produce low fat healthy meat. The only problem is we can't kill them which makes them not cheap but another pet with no return but love and how many do you need?
We are currently selling all of our rabbits but one and her kits which are too young to separate. We are selling extra cages and we never have even tried rabbit!
Trying out different animals has definitely cost me money. It also taught me about myself and my wants. This post is about trying to achieve your dreams because so many of us dream about things that we really don't know that much about.
When we try new things we learn about ourselves. I'm not super country. I'll keep my chickens and ducks, dogs, and maybe a pet rabbit, but I'm not the kind of girl who can raise my own meat.
