I’ve graduated from high school, and lately a lot of new viewers have joined us, so I’d like to explain once more what I’m doing here — and introduce every kind of animal we have, and how many.
The chickens
As the name says, everything here is about making chickens happy. Pen-chan is the first wild chicken I ever picked up, with gorgeous feathers for a wild bird. She’s very attached to me, follows me around while I do chores, and sleeps in people’s beds as if she were human.
After her, people brought me chickens, or I found and picked them up. I used to do this at school, but now I’m doing it for real. Because we rescue, about half of the chicks turn out to be roosters, yet ours don’t fight. The second coop holds twenty-some laying hens I bought when I briefly thought about egg farming. They live separately because they’re big, and they have short lives, so I raise them with extra care. I’ve never counted everyone, but I think there are about 200 chickens, and every one has a name.
The other birds
About ten ducks — starting with Basil, a mallard I saved when he was dying in a pet shop — help by picking bugs off the chickens. We have 16 pigeons, though the only one I really raised myself is Happy (a male), found in a parking lot. Our guinea fowl are on their way to becoming guards: they scream loudly at anything unusual. There are 11 quail, now in their fifth generation, so I’ve stopped breeding them. And two Java sparrows: one got caught in the coop netting with something stuck in its mouth, and one was caught by a cat.
Cats, a dog and guinea pigs
Natsu, born in the warehouse of the shop where I buy feed, came first. Kanata used to live on this farm as a stray. Then came Shimako (stripes), Madara (spots) and Ao. Meeko and her kittens Akina and Fuyuto came from an elderly woman I met at an animal welfare shelter who could no longer care for them; at the time, I was hoping someone would adopt the kittens. Iroha, our dog, was handed to me as a puppy by a man I didn’t know. My mom keeps two guinea pigs, Haru and Kumato.
Four tortoises
Finally, four young sulcata tortoises, a grass-eating African species said to grow third-largest in the world. One has a slightly chipped shell. I’m thinking of naming them after the four directions.
Everyone has a job: ducks remove bugs, guinea fowl warn of danger, cats catch rats, the dog protects, and the tortoises mow. Thank you for watching!