They Say Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day
Fruit, hay, and happy snorts all around. Ever wonder what breakfast looks like at Kindred?
While some of us Kindred volunteers may grab a coffee and Danish in the still-dark morning hours, by the time we get to the farm around 8 the animals are more than ready for a healthy hearty breakfast.
My role on Monday and Friday mornings is to help with the “smalls”—chickens, roosters, ducks, and bunnies. These metal cans in the “kitchen” of the old barn have almost everything I need: For the chickens and roosters a mix of layer pellets, mixed grains, and occasionally meal worms (beetle larvae). For the ducks, duck pellets and mixed grains. And for the bunnies a variety of lettuces as well as carrot tops, cukes and other vegetables from the fridge.
I make sure to get the hens and roosters involved with their food before I cross their domain to the ducks. That’s because the roosters, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, are out to get me. Whenever they have a chance, they follow me, block my way, jump in the air, flap their wings in my face, and kick me in the shins! What did I ever do to them?
That’s Treble on the right, our very own renegade–a soft rebel with a twitchy nose who prefers to come and go as he pleases. He knows we’ve always got a bowl of crunchy munchies at the ready for him.
Moving on to the “bigs”—the cows, horses, goat and sheep—their breakfast is lovingly prepared by other dedicated volunteers such as Christie using MUCH larger bowls.
Breakfast is similar for both our gentle-giant cows, Peanut and Clover. However, since Peanut has been losing weight recently, her dish is specifically tailored to increase her weight: roast sweet potato, pumpkin puree, overnight oats, soaked alfalfa cubes, and beet pulp. Clover’s meal is romaine, beet pulp, and cow grain.
And below are Kindred’s two elder statesmen, Badger and Secret. Christie is tethering Badger. So he won’t run away? Nope. To keep him from chowing down on Secret’s breakfast after finishing his own!
Badger and Secret dine on soaked alfalfa cubes, turmeric, hoof supplement, salt, flax, collagen, and pre/pro biotic. Secret’s breakfast also includes omega oil.
Meet Douglas. Based on the coloring of his face I could call him the black sheep of the family, except that like the other three sheep his body is all white. In truth, he’s just older than the others—well, maybe a little cheekier too.
As you see below, Douglas is actually our whitest sheep of all.
The sheep are eating beet pulp, alfalfa, sheep salt, and a salad of lettuce and other produce such as squash, pumpkin, and cucumber. It took a while, but all four finally learned to eat from their own bowl!
That brings us to our resident goat, Barney. Headstrong and mischievous, he’s all goat … and all smiles.
Barney’s breakfast is soaked alfalfa cubes, turmeric, apple sauce, ammonium chloride, a salad of romaine lettuce and other produce such as squash, pumpkin, and cucumber, as well as 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar and ½ cup cherry juice.
Cats are not usually considered farm animal rescues, so perhaps we can call them barn animal wannabees. It all started when Snow White chose to settle in with us in our old barn. A couple of years later she attracted an attractive tom. We call him Rolo. We don’t know what their relationship is officially, but Snow White did invite him to join her on her cozy heated sleeping pad. A tough little fellow, Rolo comes and goes, and we’re always pleasantly surprised to see him and feed him breakfast.
The cats are served canned salmon, Snappy Tom, and Temptation treats for breakfast.
Since we’re talking about breakfast and eating, I’ve saved for last those who may be the most enthusiastic eaters of all: the pigs, Frankie and Wilbur. They really seem to delight in eating, and we take pleasure in watching them gobble, chomp, and gulp.
This typical piggy breakfast is pig grain soaked in water and a salad of bell peppers, zucchini, cucumber, squash, roasted yams, and tomatoes. (Like many humans, Wilbur goes for the carbs first.)
Catherine Bergart, Animal Care and Fun-raising Committee Volunteer