I woke up at 7, and played some Words with friends from my bed until Dan was out of the bathroom. When I walked down to the breakfast table, I felt a little awkward knowing that Dan was homosexual for some reason, I am not sure why. But anyways, I was infer med when I got down there that on sundays they typically feed the dogs and pigs, and then we all go out to breakfast. Sounded dandy to me. So Dan and I tag teamed feeding the dogs and pigs, in the terribly squeaky JD, and managed to get back into the house within 20 minutes. We changed into our regular clothes and were off to the Morning View, a new breakfast place that Will and Kent had not tried before. So we were the Guinea pigs, fine with me. Just as we were walking in I can remember having a short cough attack and coughing up some mucus which was actually extremely disgusting, just thought I should share that. So i got an egg sandwich and a chocolate milk, and we made casual conversation about my dyed mustache. They thought that was the funniest thing in the entire world, and so did I when I used to do it ( but I actually used to think it looked baller ( and I still do ) ). I forced down the last bite of my sandwich because Will and Kent were paying for my meal, and I didn't want to waste any of their money. We then went to the grocery for 10 minutes, and then headed home. Right when we got there, Kent told us that we were going to be castrating the baby piglets today at some point. So right as Dan and I were about to start the actual morning rounds, the baby piglets were out roaming around near where we were. So, we got out of our squeaky JD and decided that we should start catching them now because they were away from their mother, and it would be less dangerous for us. As soon as we came with nets the baby pigs ran right back the gate, but some of them got trapped. So Dan and I scooped up five baby piglets in our nets, just as I scooped up chickens a couple days earlier, only this time I felt three billion times as bad. These were so cute, and when I caught them in my net they tried to run out of the stitches, but couldn't latch on to anything substantial with their feet. I felt terrible, but it needed to be done, and in the end the pigs would have it easier, than the now "already cooked at restaurants" chickens had it. So after we captured the pigs, we put them in a big box so that we could take them one by one and castrate the boys. The reason for castrating them, is that if you slaughter and eat a pig with testicles the meat is "tainted" as they call it, and tastes so vulgar that none will eat it. And the reason you need to castrate them when they are younger, is that they would be much to strong to hold down when they got older. Strange enough holding them down today was about one of the hardest things I have done on this farm. It was determined that Dan would be making the incisions and extracting the testes while I held each pig in place so that Dan could do each procedure peacefully. The amount of strength I needed to hold each little pig down will keep me sore for a week, and I am serious about that. These little baby piglets possessed so much hidden strength, its amazing. It was probably the goriest, crazy experience I have had on this farm, and going into detail hurts for me to live through again. First Dan would inject some sort of anesthetic into the testicle then make a small incision. from there he would "gently" pop out a testicle and then proceed to clamp it. This was when the pig would shriek the most. If you have never heard a pig shriek, then you are lucky, because the gut wrenching sound is treacherous. It is worse than nails on a chalkboard. So from there he would basically stitch up where he would be cutting it, and tightly knot it up. then he would cut off the testicle with scissors and repeat for the next testicle. after both were out he would rinse thoroughly and then Kent, who was overseeing the whole process, would spray a sort of band aid on top of the gash. We did this for five piglets. I can now say that i have helped castrate a living being. How insane is that. So that was the big hoopla for the day, and after that I continued washing eggs...classic case of switching from exhilarating to uneventful activities. After I finished the eggs, a helper came today who was learning to do the afternoon rounds. His name was Ethan, and from what Will and Kent told me it sounded like a 15 year old girls was coming. So when Ethan showed up, i thought to myself, Oh ok well this girl kind of looks like a boy, but hey maybe she is just unconventional. So for a good 30 minutes, I thought Ethan was a girl. classic. After talking about multiple video games, did I realize I was dealing with a 14 year old boy. He was a funny kid, who wasn't all that fond of retrieving eggs from under the chickens, as am I. But Ethan tried to convince me that he could talk to the chickens, and tell them to move so he wouldn't have to be potentially get bitten. Strange enough it actually worked the whole day haha. Maybe Ethan can talk to chickens I guess. So we finished up with that and Ethan washed the eggs, and I showed him where to put everything. As the day was coming to a close and as I was walking back to the house i thought about something. I wonder if the animals here think that their life is good. From Will and Kent it sounds like their life here is amazing, and I don't doubt it. We take amazing car of them, and always try to give them the most humane and best care possible. But do you think that the animals think their living situation is terrible? Its definitely possible, because how can you tell if something is good or not if you don't have something else to compare it with. I don't think many of the chickens, or other animals call their other buddies from different farms and ask how their living situation is, so I think that they probably don't appreciate the life that Will and Kent give them. Sounds like my mom when she is trying to tell me that I am "living the life of Riley"...whatever that means. Anyways, jut something to think about. And I am leaving for New York tomorrow so that should be fun. On that note. Nighty.
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