We have this old mirror and the frame went south, so I decided to set it out in the farmyard. Just thought it would be interesting.
The most interesting thing, however, has been watching the animals interact with it. And themselves. However, it’s curious that most of the animals don’t recognize themselves, I’m sure of it. Especially the birds… they always seem to want to peck at their images and to fight with themselves… We watched a robin do battle for a good half hour as we were doing chores one morning until we finally shooed him away.
Miss Eleanor, our lovely old red hen, she likes to admire the fine beautiful hen in the mirror. She goes and puffs up a bit, stands straight and tall and just seems like she thinks highly of that beautiful hen in the mirror.
I really wondered about this one… it’s Bridget and her little newborn son, Travis. She sniffed and looked and sniffed the mirror for a good long while… Makes you wonder, since she knows what Travis looks like and then she sees another Travis in the mirror, can she put the two thoughts together and recognize that it’s a reflection of herself and her son? What that her confusion?
They say only primates seem to understand self-reflection in a mirror and have a sense of “self”. It’s sure been amusing to watch our animals interact with the mirror.
Rana is one of the most funny of our animals. She routinely interacts with her goat girl friend. She really wants the pretty goatie to come and play. She gently head butts her, like Buttercup and Daisy do to each other, tenderly, with a little goat smile and a tail wag.
She looks at her side view and turns her head back and forth, and her imaginary goat friend does the very same thing! It’s like they are twins! (ggg)
Such a pretty girl…
Baron Kitty just sees that other pretty orange farm kitties get bothered by farm animals too, in this other land. Just lets him know that it’s normal for farm animals to bother kitties.
Thing One has to try and set his alter image in place. After all, he’s a randy young rooster and that other one is just an intruder!
Cody Pony often checks out the other pony in the mirror as well, just looking and watching the reactions of the other pony. He’s so cute when he nickers and waits to hear any response. I guess he feels the other pony is rude, and won’t talk back. I love it when they stand about half way near the mirror and try to look inside it, like it’s a window. Silly critters.
I guess best of all, I like that everyone seems to interact with it and find it interesting. The lambs all do… they will run by and then stop and do a double take, coming back to peek at the other lambs. Daisy and Buttercup will amble by, stop, admire the pretty goat girls and then walk by. The dogs don’t seem to really care much for it. But then, they are usually much more interested in all the cool farm animal smells when they are in the back area.
I highly recommend putting an old mirror out in your farm yard… just a garage sale find… it’s a lot of fun. It took our gang a month or two to really start watching it. Ours is falling apart a bit, but I was thinking that next time I was out there with some liquid nails or other such adhesive, I would glue it to the side of the barn. It’s kind of fun with our farm still life diorama we’re building. It’s hard to stick anything to the side of this barn, because of the waviness of it, but I try!
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