Kaitaia farmer Victor Rakich admits it. His farming instincts are on the wane. And it's all thanks to his 18-year-old granddaughter Chanelle Cooper.
Chanelle has an affinity with animals, none more so than Duckie, which Victor helped emerge from her egg, one of three that were abandoned by her mother. He cleaned her up a bit then handed her into Chanelle's care, and the pair have become inseparable, to the point where feathers are distinctly distinctly ruffled should duck lose sight of teenager.
The duck is just one resident on the small Rakich farm, at the bottom of the Awanui Straight, that seems destined to dodge the usual fate of their kind, however. The menagerie includes a very solidly-built soon-to-be-sheep lamb (Lambie), a master at opening and getting through gates despite her species' reputation for lacking grey cells, a couple of very small large white piglets (not yet named, an ominous sign perhaps that their fate may yet be the subject of a family discussion at some point in the future), and a kitten that delights in beating them up.
Victor said last week that he hoped the kitten (Charlie) enjoyed his sport because it wouldn't last once the piglets started growing.
The one thing all have in common is the protection of Chanelle, the apple of her Poppa's eye, and it would probably be worth a modest wager that the piglets, like Duckie and Lambie, have nothing to fear but old age.
