With nearly one million acres of
land to kick around on, it gives us plenty of opportunity to keep a few
pets. Indeed it is certainly one of the
joys of station life to have plenty of pets of various shapes and sizes.
The obligatory pets of course are
of the canine variety. We have a little
boxer called Taylor (after Taylor Swift although she is much cuter).
We have a peacock called
Fowl. He is a refugee from Sandfire
Roadhouse and enjoys playing with the chooks.
Speaking of chooks we have plenty of them who in addition to being pets
also provide us with eggs.
No station would be complete without
a few horses to ride on. With most
mustering now carried out by helicopter, the horses are for recreational
purposes.
One of our more interesting pets
is our pet camel "Chewy". She
was rescued as a calf and brought to the homestead. She now wanders about and
looks after the poddy calves. Research
has shown that cattle can gain a benefit from grazing with camels. Camels are ruminants like cattle and
generally have a broader spectrum of bacteria in their rumen allowing them to
more fully digest plant material. These
bacteria can pass to cattle if they drink from the same trough or graze in
close proximity. So it is obvious that
Chewy is much more than a pretty face.
There is also the odd unusual pet
like Charlie – the black headed python.
And last but certainly not least are our cattle herd. With about 15,000 to choose from, there are always some friendly ones amongst them.
