a fun afternoon

Calamity Jane's General Store in Wilson's Mills, NC (with a Clayton address) started something new today.....a poultry auction!  Since today was the first time for it to be held, we weren't expecting them to have a whole lot of fowl things, but they did! We were going to go and observe today, but after being there about twenty minutes I registered for a bidding number. We came home with two geese, (one female, a light brown like our grey ones; and one white, sex unknown that resembles the Chinese goose). They had a roman Toulouse (what we call the mohawk geese), but it had a bad leg.  With all the wildlife problems we encounter, I was afraid we would be feeding it to the slaughter. I seriously considered bidding on a box of 16 black austrolop biddies, but refrained. It was the first animal auction I've ever been to, and it was quite fun! The only disadvantage to buying birds at auction is that you can't ask the owners questions (not that you always get honest answers from Craigslist owners) and you can't check the bird out before hand. But on the other hand, the prices were much lower than CraigsList. I think this was the lowest amount we've ever paid for geese, and so far they seem to be adjusting okay. They've made it to the pond, are "swimming" with our geese. None have attacked the other yet, but ours are swimming at a fairly past pace trying to get away from them. We guess they'll stop once they're tired. After the slaughters of 2010, this year just might be a good animal year for us! :)