If it all seems overwhelming when your animals get sick or die around you, know that you are not alone. I wish I could give you a hug right now! Handling the emotionality of dying animals, and even plants, can be hard. Other homesteaders experience this, too. I used to feel that it was only me that experienced this loss. The hopelessness of thinking you could do more if only you would work harder to keep these animals alive. There is this emotionality of feeling the sadness of your animals dying on your homestead. It just means that you care about those animals who are entrusted to your care.
I sometimes feel as if this death experience is only happening to me, not most of my friends, but if you do enough digging, you will find that death is a part of life. It’s how we handle it that makes or breaks us as homesteaders and animal keepers.
Lately, when I survey my plants that didn’t make it or didn’t do well this spring and summer, I start to blame myself, even though I know that is not productive. Some things I have learned through this time are having a community to lean into. Find others who also have chickens or a garden that you can bounce ideas off or just complain to.
It Depends on What You Do With Your Animals
It really does depend on whether you actually use your animals for food, or just acquire something from your animals. Or does it? For us, we don’t actually eat our animals; we only eat our chickens’ eggs. So we choose to name some of them, as our fancy strikes us.
I have read that you shouldn’t name your flock, or if you do, name them a food-related word. This can help with the fact that someday you may have this animal on your plate. I really don’t know if this helps or not since mostly my husband names them. He’s good at it, so I let him.
Save For Later!
Sentimentality of Losing Your Crops
In the spring, our raspberries started to look like they were developing a virus, so I cut them all very low to the ground. The celery that I started from seed is still not looking very good. Now, I am noticing that my Sunburst squash is dropping the fruit, and it has these soft spots on all of them. All of this can be disheartening for the homesteader.
Several things to try are to have a backup of seedlings waiting inside to replant, succession plant directly into the soil, or if all else fails, head to your local nursery. My tomatoes are tall and leggy this year even though some of them I bought at our local nursery. We cannot always control what happens to our gardens, and we might have to let go. Try not to beat yourself up, and have some grace when crop loss happens.
Feelings About House Pets
We lost our cat of 8 years 3 months ago and it just about broke me. It was so sudden. We came back from a trip and didn’t realize how sick she was. She became so dehydrated that we had to put her down. Then we got a kitten 5 weeks ago and, she was born with a tushy that was extended. We tried so many things, not the least of them that we wanted to feed her a raw diet. She was such a happy kitten even though, she couldn’t have a regular poop. We finally had to let her go. She was so happy, that if you didn’t see her butt, you wouldn’t know anything was wrong.
It hurts to not hear the little paws or the sound of the toys as we come around the corner from our room in the morning. My cat would sit at the top of the steps outside when I came home from work each night. It feels so weird. Here is a blog about the steps of pet grief you might find helpful.
Then once that was over, we realized one of our chickens had Vent Gleet. We thought we helped cut that off at the pass, and now another chicken has it and we didn’t even notice. Now she is really sick and just laying around. I am not giving up on her. We secluded her and this will be the last time tonight to soak her and put some Vagisil on her vent.
Emotions of Losing Your Animals
Sadness, and so much grief is how we feel after we lose an animal or a plant. Did we do all we could?
Have we learned the lesson we need to learn through each loss? After this happens, then we can grow. We can decide how and what to do differently next time.
I learned that so much is out of my control. I learned that I need to spot-check my animals every week. Learning that I need to check for bugs and diseases occasionally, and then what we can’t change, we must let this go and believe that the Father will help us to be more diligent next time.
What We Learned Through All of This Loss
Sometimes loss is inevitable. We can’t always fix it, even though we try.
We lost about 4 chickens this year through various health ailments. We lost one cat and a kitten. A lot of my crops didn’t do so well in my garden this year, but because I am back to working full-time to become debt-free, I am doing the best I can at trying to keep afloat.
I am giving myself some grace. Allow yourself to grieve.
Have you had losses this year? How do you handle it? If you have any suggestions please post them in the comments below! We love to hear from you!
Hugs!
Kimberlee
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