Chickens and Goats and Pigs, Oh My!

Remember when your pets were dogs and or cats? Remember when parakeets, guinea pigs, or hamsters were also acceptable pets? No longer. Now pigs, chickens and goats are family pets. When did a cold nose or a soothing purr stop being enough reward from a pet? When did getting something other than love and affection from a pet become a requirement? Sure fresh eggs are great. Goat milk is fine. If you don’t kill your pet pig is it the fertilizer that you get? I am unclear on the pigs!

Chickens are so acceptable here in Portland that there are businesses booming for the chicken crazed. Chicken hotels when you go away on vacation so you can board your flock. Long term seminars for when your chickens stop producing eggs. Workshops on building chicken coops and classes about egg use.

If chickens weren’t enough and evidently they are not, people have embraced the goat. The chickens and the goats can hang out together and they both produce food products. They both will follow you around when you offer them food. In fact chickens are so popular that the cover of Title Nine

Catalogue this fall has a woman holding a chicken and actively ready to grasp another. In the inside over she has them both (chickens) snuggled under her arms.

Title Nine is on the pulse of coolness because on page 52 there is a model with goats. Most of the catalogue consists of their usual pictures; models running, biking, rock climbing, walking and eating. There is one picture with a horse and one with a dog perhaps for nostalgia sake. I like Title Nine a lot; I was just surprised to see chickens on their front cover! I expect pigs will be donning their catalogue pages in the winter or spring issues.

Here is a picture of pet pigs a friend’s son has recently bought. He is renting a home with 5 acres. This special breed of pig, Kunekune, is originally from New Zealand. He already has a dog and chickens. I don’t know what his pet deposit was for all his pets.

Are you the owner of chickens and goats? What about a pig?