Dealing with Loss on the Homestead

(Photo credit to Hopping Bunnies)

I’ve lost animals before, not farm animals but beloved pets. It’s a devastating emotional experience. You miss your best friend and blame yourself for not doing more (even if there was nothing you could do). In a few months we will be coming up on the 2yr anniversary of the death of Bruce, our first pet loss as a married couple. We only had him for 6 months but he was a part of our family and is greatly missed every day.

In our experience losing a farm animal is not like that. While it is upsetting we are not devastated. It will not take us months to start functioning normally again. We will not cry every day for weeks missing our pet. A few weeks ago we lost our first farm animal. She was our only laying (at the time) duck but we buried her and moved on. About a week later we lost 2 rabbits in a single day. I had failed to move their tractor and they dug out. I caught our gray rabbit in about 5 minutes. It took over an hour to catch the broken red and I never saw the black one again. Later that very same day we lost our buck. I had spent the past week trying to nurse him back to health, we suspected he had bloat. Sadly, he did not make it. This death was the hardest because I had interacted with him so much and because he died in my arms. He was my favorite of the four in terms of coloring (we picked out our rabbits for the pelts their babies would produce). I cried over him, buried him in the garden and planted a blue agnes bean on top.

(sorry I don't have a great picture of this duck)

A few days later we lost another duck she made a poor ducky decision and was hit by a car. Another one of my favorite animals. She was a pretty cream color and I was looking forward to more light colored babies from her. She was also a month from laying age which is very disappointing. Needless to say after a week and a half of loss after loss I am a little burned out. Losing a farm animal is upsetting but not exactly in an emotional attachment way (unless you’ve been nurturing that animal). It’s upsetting because of all the time, money and effort you have put into that animal. We do have an attachment to the things they produce and losing a productive layer for instance is disappointing. The goal is to grow production not reduce it. Yes there will be setbacks but when you only have 7 laying hens to begin with it’s frustrating. Or losing half of your rabbit breeding stock right after you get them.

Homestead deaths ended up not being quite what I expected. I think deciding not to handle the ducks much even as ducklings was a good call for us, it made losing some not quite as upsetting. I will have to interact with the rabbits more but I feel better about potential losses. I knew we had a good plan to avoid burn out. We’ve done a good job of taking on new things slowly to keep from getting overwhelmed. . I feel like losing animals on a homestead is the biggest hurdle for people (like ourselves) who aren’t used to agricultural life. Now we know that we can deal with losses and keep going. In a couple weeks we will see if we can handle death at our own hands (or at least my husbands for now).