GEE Funny Farm is Thankful 2017

2017 has been a great year and as Thanksgiving approaches we recognize that we have a lot for which to be grateful!

1. We are grateful for all of you who trusted us with your birthday parties, community events, company parties, day care children, senior citizen residents, graduation parties, surprise parties, sloth encounters, wedding proposals, summer camps, etc. And we are grateful that Fox 6 Real Milwaukee came to visit!

A wedding proposal, our buckling delivered the ring.

100 day celebration at a local school

Photo shoot at Saturn Lounge

Suzanne and Brian with Abish (click the names to see Real Milwaukee)

Farm day at a local library.

2.  We are grateful for all of you who invited us back or came to see us for the second, third, fourth time....

3.  We are grateful for all of the nice people we meet.  I'm sorry that the news is full of reports about how awful people are, because that is NOT our experience!

4.  We are grateful for our animals.  We really have a great animal family.  We are awed every day that we can have such close contact with such wonderful creatures!

5.  We are grateful for all of you who have liked our Facebook page and made comments, liked and/or shared our posts.  You made it possible for the word to get out about us!  

6. We are thankful for all of you who took the time to write a review on Facebook or Gigsalad.com or through email. It helps others have an idea of what to expect, and it makes us feel good because we really do want to do a great job every time!

7. We are thankful for referral partners like Pine Ridge Riding Center, and Bear Den Zoo and Petting Farm, We appreciate the opportunity to work together to meet the wants and needs of prospective customers!

8.  We are grateful for all of the people who help care for our animals.  Our veterinarians, Dr. Loof who has taken care of most of our animals, Dr. Herlugson who takes care of my parrots, and Dr. Johnson who takes care of my horses, our farrier, Gary; our assistants Krystal and Angele; our hay guys, Wayne and Rob who grow the hay that gets us through winter; and our USDA Inspector, Jessica. We will miss Wayne who is retiring someplace warm and sunny.

9. We are thankful for the animal groups we are on where we can exchange ideas and ask questions to learn from the experiences of others!

10. And we are grateful that we live in such a beautiful place.

Thanks to all of you for our best year yet. We've been able to see people for the 4th or 5th time and have been able to do some new things!  We are grateful to all of you for making that happen!

What Do You Do With a Kangaroo ... Er, Wallaby?

Some people keep dogs, some people keep cats, some people keep rabbits. We’ve got a wallaby (and then some, but let’s just focus on the wallaby here). We’ve done the wallaby thing before so you’d think (as we did) that we were not novices when we picked up Tabitha in the spring of this year. We had Clancy for over 13 years so we thought we had some experience, and we were right. We did have some experience. After all, we kept Clancy close by and we bottle-fed him. However, Clancy never did bond in the same way as Tabitha has. We can’t say exactly why. It may have been because he was older, or perhaps because he had a different personality, or because we didn’t know what we have learned this time. It also may have been because we got Clancy in January, so he was ready to move outside in May or June of that year. When all is said and done, this time around, we’re going to have a wallaby under foot for just about an entire year!

Clancy checking out his new shed.

Clancy at about 14 years old.

When you live in a house with a pet wallaby, you’re bound to get inquiries from the slightly envious, or the mildly disgusted, or the intensely curious. I know you’re bound to because we do. So here’s the lay of the Funny Farm household as run [ahem] influenced by a baby wallaby.

9-month-old Tabitha trying to find an itch.

“Where Do You Even Get a Wallaby?”

We got Clancy from one place, but this time we decided to try a different breeder, so we got Tabitha from Fall City Wallaby Ranch outside Seattle. I was lucky enough to be able to stay for several days when I went out to pick her up. Rex, the breeder, really loves his wallabies and kangaroos and spends quality time with them and their offspring. He was well acquainted with Tabitha since he had been bottle-feeding her for almost a month before I got there. He hadn’t intended to “pull her” (meaning remove her from her mother) until I arrived, but her mother became ill, so Rex had to pull her earlier than he wanted, even though I couldn’t be there yet. He really tried to talk me into a different joey because Tabitha was very small, but I loved her immediately and I guess he decided that I’d be okay because he let me bring her home.

Looking out the window to the wallaby, kangaroo, and 
wallaroo enclosures at Fall City Wallaby Ranch.
 If you are ever in Seattle, take the tour!

Rex holding Tabitha (8 months old)

Tabitha and Rex interacting.

“What Do You Feed a Pet Wallaby?”

We buy her milk formula from Wombaroo because it’s specially formulated for wallabies and kangaroos.

I started off having to feed her every four hours. Two of those feeding times meant I had to get up in the middle of my night to feed her and stimulate her to urinate in the playpen ‘litter box.’ This was good news since she has bonded well, but the bad news? I need a lot of sleep and I felt like a new mom. We were glad when we could cut one of the feeding times and instead feed her immediately before I went to bed and the moment I got up.

Now that she is fifteen months old, Tabitha also eats grass, hay (getting her ready for when there is no grass), and a special dry feed made for wallabies and kangaroos called L’il Hopper. Eventually she will graduate to Happy Hopper – same company, but made for older wallabies and kangaroos.

9-month old Tabitha taking a bottle.

10 month old Tabitha out in the grass and weeds.

11-month old Tabitha taking a bottle.

“Is She Litter-Box Trained?”

This is the #1 question that I am asked. Simple answer? Sort of. She is pretty good about urinating in her playpen on doggie pads. The side of the pen has been cut open so she can get in and out easily. Most of the time her scat (feces) is small and firm and can be swept up – because she drops fecal matter everywhere – though mostly on tile floors and doggie pads we have now put down in her ‘favorite’ places. Yes, she has bowel movements when she is in her pouch. Usually it is easily removed – dumping the scat out over the garbage can or outside. 
Once in a while the scat can be looser and messier and harder to clean up from the pouch or wherever. Sometimes she decides to urinate on the tile or the plastic, and sometimes her bowels are loose. Do you recognize the problem here? It is called a tail! Even though she doesn’t step in it, her tail drags through it . . . so we sometimes get trails of, well, whatever.

Occasionally, like when we leave her home alone, Tabitha has been known to leave scat and urine on our bed. So, every morning I cover the bed with a plastic drop cloth and throw a couple of dog pads up there.

“Does She Jump All Over The House?”

Well, speaking of the bed, it is high (even for a bed) -- about 3 feet off the floor (because it has drawers underneath) -- and Tabitha can jump up on it from a sitting position on the floor. This means that she can jump on furniture, tables, chairs, counters, etc. So far she has limited herself to the bed, the hearth, and one of the bathroom counters. We may have encouraged these limitations by making sure every door is closed along the hallway and we have gates up to keep her out of the living room and basement.

Tabitha on our 3 foot high bed. 

The hearth

A bathroom counter...

“What’s It Like Living With a Wallaby?”

What about other aspects of a wallaby as miniature roomie?  

Well, for one thing, she chews on things such as my good sneaker laces, David’s biking gloves, and the straps of her pouches. She has also stripped wallpaper off the wall and chewed on the carpet.  On the bright side, I guess I might finally learn to put things away, I wanted the wallpaper off the wall, and we needed new carpet before Tabitha.

My poor shoelace.

Our poor carpeting and our wallpaper.

Even the toilet paper is not safe!

One of the fun things about Tabitha being in the house!

Tabitha waiting at the door for me.

 For another thing, she doesn’t seem to share her space so well. She hisses at our border collie, Amos.

Her hiss is soft and quiet and isn’t all that intimidating unless you’re an ant. However, he is a passive dog and tries to stay away from her. She will follow him around, and once in a while he finally growls. Soon we will see how she does with our mini pig, Neum. He comes inside at night, but goes directly to his crate, so there hasn’t been much interaction. However, with colder weather coming, he will be inside a lot more. I may have another post when we see how that relationship shakes out.

Then again, there are many great things about having Tabitha in the house. There is still a lot of bonding time. She now comes and demands a bottle when she wants it and she often drinks a little and comes more often during the day. This is probably more what would happen if she was in the wild. I know that my goat kids sip a bit from the doe and play and sip a bit and go, etc. They never stand and drink like the ones I’ve bottle-fed have been expected to. I still get to cuddle her when she is in one of her pouches.

She isn’t crazy about being held without a pouch, but she is very cuddly when she is in one. She still wants attention – and we’d miss that if she was outside. When we take her out and let her do her own thing, she likes it, but she wants me where she can keep an eye on me. That’s really okay, of course, because at fifteen months old, she would still be hanging out with her mom if she were in the wild.

Still, even with all the nice things about having a wallaby close at hand, we will all be happy when spring comes and Tabitha moves into Clancy’s old digs, because, when it comes down to it, a human house isn’t really designed for even the cutest, sweetest little macropod.

Wallaby development for the first 13 months.

Ideas for Your Visit to GEE Funny Farm

   We want your visit to GEE Funny Farm to be a fun and rewarding experience.  There are a few things you can do to help that to happen.

1.   Please bring cash to pay for your visit.  We don't accept credit cards or checks.  Sorry if this is inconvenient. It works for us.

2.   Talk to your children about the importance of obeying instructions about how to pet or hold the animal.  Talking to them ahead of time puts us on the same page when I give instructions --- though I’ve had very few problems.  People who come here like animals and want to do the right thing!

 

People who follow directions get to pet all kinds of interesting animals!

 

3.    If you aren’t sure of what the weather is going to be, plan accordingly.  Having a windbreaker or sweater is better than wrapping up in a blanket.  The blanket ends up getting flapped around when you are trying to pet the animals and that might make them nervous – and if it doesn’t, it makes me nervous.

 

Bringing jackets will make you more comfortable and
there won't be flapping blankets that might scare the animals or distract Kathy.

  

4.    We suggest that you wear closed toe shoes (not sandals or flip-flops) to protect your feet.  Goats, sheep, mini pigs, horses, donkeys, and llamas have hooves.  While they would not purposely step on anyone, they do move around sometimes and may step on your feet.  Even when you are sitting it is possible that your feet may find their way under the feet of the animal that we are moving as close to you as possible so you can pet it.

Wearing closed toe shoes (tennis shoes, steel toe shoes --
not sandals or flip-flops) will keep your feet and toes safe
when you are around hooved animals.

5.   Bring bug juice or sunscreen if you might need it – most of our property is wetlands (ie swamp) and it often rains, so it is possible that there will be mosquitoes or other annoying insects.  While you are under the canopy for the presentation, the hayride does not have shade and some people (like my grandsons) can get sunburned on sunny days (not that Wisconsin has that many, says the girl from Arizona).

 

You are in the shade under the canopy
(you might want to bring a chair if you don't want to sit on benches provided...
we're working on getting a few chairs for adults. 
These adults brought their camp chairs).

 

No shade when you are in the haywagon, except near a few trees. 
If you burn easily, you might want to apply sunscreen or bring it along.

 

6.    WASH YOUR HANDS!!  We provide warm water and goat milk soap for you to use, and we also have antibacterial soap you can use without water – however, soap and water works as well and doesn’t kill all of the good bacteria on your hands that help to build immunities.

a.     If you eat BEFORE the presentation – wash your hands.  Some little animals smell food and think you might taste good (at least this is what I’ve heard).  Larger animals who smell food will look through your pockets and sleeves and under your shirt trying to find what is making that yummy smell.  While this might seem funny, it is not how we like our animals to be trained.

b.      If you eat AFTER the presentation – wash your hands… people aren’t around animals like in the ‘olden’ days and immunities are not built up like your parents’ or your grandparents’ were – besides dirty hands are yucchy.  (Second verse same as the first...a little bit louder and a little bit worse...)

c.       If you don’t eat and just leave after the presentation – wash your hands… people aren’t around animals like in the ‘olden’ days and immunities are not built up like your parents’ or your grandparents’ were – besides dirty hands are yucchy. (Third verse same as the first...a little bit louder and a little bit worse...)

 

I know, it looks like a water cooler.  In this case it has warm water and
there are soap and paper towels next to it so hand washing is easy.

 

   There you go!  Six things can help you have a great time.  If you have other concerns, please feel free to contact us by email information@geefunnyfarm.com or phone 262-751-8328.

   We look forward to your visit!

Book Review by guest writer Keegan Taylor--Enslaved by Ducks

 

 

 

Well, it’s been some time since our last book review, but your reviewer has just literally laughed out loud whilst reading the story Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte. If you have ever owned one more pet than you planned, or if you have had an animal worm it’s way into your heart against your will, or if you have possibly owned six more animals than you planned (ahem, Kathy and David), then you may be able to relate to this book. Unlike Some We Eat (which we reviewed some months back), Enslaved by Ducks only makes the slightest pretense of being informative and no pretense of being scientific. All in all, it’s just a story of a city man turned country bumpkin, who soon finds himself overruled by (mostly) avian masters.

 

 One example of Tarte’s great sense of humor is his anecdote about trying to subtly out-do people in their pet ownership. He tells about sidling up to a woman buying dog food and sighing about how he can’t get a dog himself. She pats his arm sympathetically and says maybe someday he can, and then he (figuratively) pounces . . . listing off how he’s just too busy with his parrots, dove, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, and cats. And he walks off in triumph. But, of course, it’s a lot funnier when he writes it, and if you’ve ever had something which you feel a little like gloating about then you’ll very likely be able to relate. We won’t say that this has ever been the case with a teenaged daughter of GEE Funny Farm owners, but we will just say that sometimes we suspect that some people really do feel and act this way.

 

 His anecdotes about his psychologist visits are less in our line of work (with animals), but can we just say that they, too, are so delightfully funny. What a wonderful character description! When the doctor reads off questions such as, “Do you hear voices? Do people follow you?” Tarte’s response? – Well, that’s just plain wit!

 

When thinking about my own review, I glanced at Goodreads to see what others were saying. Many people loved it. Many people were indifferent to it. Many people hated it. One of the things we noticed about Tarte’s early animal acquisitions that we knew would end in trouble was his lack of research. That is one of the issues we’re most passionate about: if you’re going to get an animal, then do the research! From dog to bunny to parrot to lizard, you need to know about that specific species’ temperament and needs. We couldn’t be mad at Tarte himself because it’s a mistake so many people make! We just hope that those who read the book will learn from his experience.

 

 Are the Tartes perfect pet-owners? Oh, no, they certainly make mistakes. Is everyone going to be able to relate to them? Probably not. If you don’t have much interest in pets, then this story probably won’t be for you. But all in all, they’re good-hearted people with a delightful, animal-loving story to tell, not unlike the Gees! 



Hooray! It's Shearing Day!

After a crazy winter that seemed to stretch well into April, we finally got our sheep, alpacas, llamas, and Angora goat sheared.  I appreciate people who can shear – they make it look easy.

When we only had two sheep, after seeing a shearer at a fair, I thought, “I can do that.”  I ordered hand shears and gave it a try.  After an hour, with little results, I thought I’d better get electric clippers.  So, I ordered them.  I followed directions and tried again.  The sheep was a Merino – they have a lot of fold in their skin and their wool is very dense.  After four days, and my poor sheep looking a mess, I gave up.

The next year I had two sheep and two llamas and hired a shearer.  He pulled into my driveway and pulled out of my driveway 30 minutes later.  My sheep and llamas looked relieved, the fiber was mostly in one piece each, and I had hardly broken a sweat (I did catch the sheep and llamas and bagged the fiber).

Since then, we’ve hired shearers.  We appreciate them.  They do a much better job than I could (at least without a lot of practice). 

Shearing is like giving the animal a haircut.  However, it is tricky.  The goal is to do it with the fiber coming off as one piece.  If the shearer misses some fiber and goes back to get it with another cut, it is called a second cut.  The goal is one cut and one fleece in one piece.  All shearers have some second cuts.  However, the fewer the shearer has the better for the fiber holder.

The fiber is an excellent insulator on sheep as well as on people…you can almost see the llamas and alpacas breathe a sigh of relief as the fiber comes off.  One year we had a particularly hot May and the alpacas and llamas were acting up until the first swipe of the shears.  As the fiber fell away, they held completely still ready for the relief!

So, how did it turn out yesterday?  Here are some before and after pictures of our animals…

Abinadi and Liahona waiting...

Vonnegut wating...

Hosea and Nephi waiting..

 



All of the llamas and alpacas done!

 

So, following are before and after pictures of our sheep and goat...





 

 

You can see pictures of Shiblon, our Angora goat, being sheared and the end
result on our GEE Funny Farm Facebook page.

Sheep skin is very thin and easy to cut.  One more reason to let a professional shear my sheep!

I found a video clip on Youtube that shows a professional sheep shearer.  He makes it look so easy - which is true of most professionals, don't you think?!?

Sheep Shearing Made Simple by David Duke

Enjoy!


Now That Was Eye Opening by guest writer Keegan Taylor

Somebody from church was given a turkey awhile back, and he gave it to us. We've had it in our basement freezer for awhile now, and I thought I should just go ahead and bake it. I've never baked a turkey before, but I brined it and mish-mashed several recipes together to prepare it, and -- voila! -- my final masterpiece.

Here's the thing, though, in the last couple of years, I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as well as Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (twice) by Hal Herzog. My parents have also recently been sharing some things they learned from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. National Geographic also recently had a feature article on feeding our hungry planet. I also have a few friends who are vegan or who have moved in that direction. So generally, overall, I've become more informed about what it takes to create all the meat we consume. I get it and I feel concerned about it, though I haven't figured out how my moral feelings will govern my behavior.

But fixing this turkey was just one step more on the road towards cutting back on meat consumption. When you handle a whole turkey, you see how much meat is on this one animal. This was an 11 pound turkey.

I have some familiarity with animals because of my mom's farm. That experience mixed with my most recent major efforts in the kitchen combined to give me a truly hands-on understanding of what's going on here.

In Some We Love by Hal Herzog, he describes the life of the chicken on your plate in the hen house:

"Cheap meat comes at a cost. A broiler chicken's bones cannot keep up with the explosive growth of its body. Unnaturally large breasts torque a chicken's legs, causing lameness, ruptured tendons, and twisted leg syndrome. According to Donald Broome, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, severe leg pain in chickens is the world's largest animal welfare problem. Arthritis, heart disease, sudden death syndrome, and a host of metabolic disorders are prevalent among industrial broilers.

"The living conditions of the animals destined to become chicken nuggets are Dante-esque. The chicks will never see sun nor sky. Because they are so top-heavy, broiler chickens spend most of their day lying down, often in litter contaminated with excrement. As a result, many will develop breast blisters, hock burns, and sores on their feet . . ."

So I've read that before and I've felt anxious about our food consumption around here, with five meat-eaters. But when you have a meat-made turkey lying on your cutting board and you're handling that thing, you can see that there is a very high meat-to-bone ratio. My mom has turkeys. They are the sweetest, most contented things. My mom loves them, because they follow her around and live in a little happy troupe. In the summertime, they have the run of the yard and they mostly forage for their own food. With that turkey in my kitchen, I imagined plucking my mom's healthy, wholesome turkeys and I knew that they would not look like this. They are not the same kind of turkey, but that's the point. The kind of turkey we're consuming in massive amounts are not, by design, healthy animals.

When my parents bought the farm property they now live on an older couple lived there. They owned a horse, a pony, and a sheep, which my parents inherited with purchase of the property. The three animals had all been excessively grain-fed. The pony suffered severe laminitis and the sheep -- the sheep was a horrid, massive, bulky creature whom we named "Mammoth." There was no hope for him by the time we inherited the property. My mom weaned back his grain consumption but he was too far gone. There came a day when the beast could no longer rise. He was just plain too heavy for his own legs. A neighbor came and put an end to Mammoth, may he rest in peace. Now, I know I've gone from turkeys to chickens to turkeys to sheep, but the point here is I would never have wanted to eat that well-fed enormous sheep, but I do regularly eat equivalent kinds of chickens and turkeys. Unfortunately, when I put that turkey meat in my mouth, no matter the fact that I'd been pondering the unfortunate circumstances of its life, I still felt satisfied and pleased with the taste of the turkey. It would be so much easier to align my beliefs and actions if I didn't like the taste of animals.

I'm not really sure what affect this experience will have on our meat consumption around here. My husband isn't all that fond of turkey anyway. When I told him about my experience with the turkey, I said, "Are you listening? Do you care?"

"Yeah. I heard you," he replied, "But, ya know, cruelty just tastes good."

He said this tongue-in-cheek about the turkey because he doesn't even like turkey. But he (and I) do like beef and pork and chicken. But I'd like to think that we weren't so crass as to feel that cruelty does taste good. I'd like to cut back on our meat consumption because that turkey on my table demonstrated full-on that grocery-store poultry absolutely truly is the result of some cruel experimentation, and I don't particularly want to be a party to it.

Why The Difference??

Spring is coming and bookings are coming in.  Sometimes people wonder why it is cheaper to come to the farm than for us to bring fewer animals to them.  Let’s pretend you have booked us for a birthday party a mere 30 miles away.  We’ll bring 5-7 small animals for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on the interest of the participants.  Why does that make a difference?  Because when people get bored or distracted is when an accident might happen, so when interest is over, we pack up.

We put each animal into a crate or carrier.  Today we are bringing a bearded dragon in her plastic travel container, two parrots (which count as one animal since we use them to show why it is important to research parrots before you buy one) – each in his own acrylic travel carrier, a rabbit in his plastic travel carrier, a hedgehog in his bonding pouch, a short-tailed opossum his travel pouch,  a goose in her crate, a turkey in her crate, and our mini pig is in crate – that’s a bonus of an extra animal.  Besides the animals in their crates, we need water and water dishes or dispensers for each, a canopy for shade, a tarp, a barrier to keep people and animals separate except under supervision, a table if we bring the egg game and the eggs.  We need to bring antibacterial soap that can be used without water, and water for us (especially if it is hot).  Sometimes we need to provide benches, so we need to pack those.  We figure that it will take us an hour to 1-2 hours to get everyone and everything loaded and secured.

For most 30 mile treks, it takes 45 minutes to an hour one way.  We arrive, you pay us the balance (you’ve already paid a deposit to secure your date and time), and we unpack everyone.  We set up the canopy and the barriers, get the stand out for the parrots, put down the tarp for under the turkey and goose crates (they have wood chips in to absorb droppings, set up the canopy, if needed, and set up the egg game, if we bring it.  We figure that will take about 15 minutes.  So, before we’ve started, we’ve already put in 1.5-2 hours.

Then we do our favorite part – we present the animals and interact with the participants.  People ooh and aah when they touch the goose (she is very soft!).  They touch her feet and we talk about how they get feathers for featherbeds and pillows.  Participants ask questions about the hedgehog who may or may not be ‘soft’ as they touch him.  We talk about the difference in personalities in umbrella cockatoos and African grey parrots and everyone gets to see Asimov, the cockatoo, do some tricks, and then they get to pet him.  If people want a photo opp – it is often with Asimov.  And so on…. (most of the time 1 hour-1.5 hours).

Then, we pack up the truck, clean up the wood shavings that have fallen from the cages, put away the bird stand, the canopy, the barrier, the benches or table, etc.  We figure that takes 15 minutes and then we head home (45 minutes to 1 hour). 

Asimov, the umbrella cockatoo, being pet.

Once we are home we have to unpack everything and put the animals back into their habitats.  That takes about an hour.  So, at the end of the day, we’ve put in at least 5 hours to bring the entertainment to you and if you add large animals, it is at least 7 hours of work since we have to pack more, hook up a trailer, set-up a corral, take down the corral, clean up after larger animals (we put down a large tarp with the corral around it), etc.

If you come to the farm, we do have to set up our canopy (the county makes us take it down every day), so we have to set up benches and tables and gather the animals (7-10 animals big and small).  It takes us about 2 hours.  The presentation takes about 45 minutes-1.5 hours and then we have a hayride around the property if you’d like.  If you stay to have cake and party stuff, using our tables, we put animals away, so when you leave, all that is left is putting away benches and tables and taking down the canopy.  It takes us about an hour – so if you have partied for an hour, we have 4 hours invested and part of that was a break after putting away animals.  So, you can see why it is cheaper to come to the GEE Funny Farm!  Make an appointment today!!

Our canopy on the farm AND the screened tent for the birds and flying squirrel.  You can also see the edge of the corral where the larger animals are hanging out waiting to be presented.