Many families may have animals, and these pets can range from cats and dogs to horses and cattle. One Yutan student in particular has experience with a very wide variety of animals.
Sophomore Avery Schmidt lives with an assortment of animals including goats, dogs, chickens, turkeys, cats and ducks. With all these different species adding up, Schmidt has around 56 animals in total that she has to take care of.
“I do most of the work for my animals. I feed and water [the animals] every night. I make sure that they’re all inside at night so they don’t get eaten,” Schmidt said. “My goats get hay when they need it. They also need copper, so we fill that up like every week.”
Schmidt has had most of her dogs for her whole life, while the rest of her animals came anywhere from five to six years ago.
“We kind of slowly just kept getting more animals. Like it started out with chickens then we got ducks, goats and turkeys,” said Schmidt.
Since there are so many animals to take care of, some new and some old, each one has its own necessities besides food and water.
“My chickens, they sort of know about going inside before it gets dark, so I don’t really have to coax them inside. My cats come in every morning and night, and they meow when they want food,” Schmidt said.
While some of Schmidt’s pets may be easy to take care of every day, others are more needy.
“My goats are really annoying because all they do is eat. As soon as I get home, they want food, so I have to go feed them,” Schmidt said. “One [turkey] is a female, and we have two males, so they always fight over her. And she’s actually nesting three turkey eggs right now.”
Caring for these animals means keeping them healthy and safe; however, sometimes this job can be difficult and even a little dangerous.
“My turkey, Blue, likes to attack me, and that makes my job very difficult because I have to lock him up in a different area when I’m cleaning the coop and giving them water and feed inside,” Schmidt said.
Although it can be hard sometimes, Schmidt can incorporate some fun into these daily tasks, such as training an animal to do a trick.
“They’re all cute, and I like to hold or pet them,” Schmidt said. “I trained my dog Thor to sit, shake, lay down and beg. And then my other dog Armani knows how to sit in Spanish.”
Dogs are a usual animal to train, but Schmidt went up a step to train another one of her animals.
“I love Samuel, my mini rooster, because when I call him, he’ll fly up onto my shoulder. I trained him to do that,” Schmidt said.
In all, it takes Schmidt around thirty minutes each day to care for all her animals. Although it takes time out of her day, she still enjoys the learning experience from caring for all these animals.
“I’m really grateful and happy to have all my animals because I’ve learned how to be responsible for them, and they’re fun to take care of,” Schmidt said. “It’s also fun to show off Samuel and Thor’s tricks to my friends.”
