Bud DeYoung - Its a Wild Life: How My Life Became a Zoo

To my mother, Rosemary, for encouraging me when I was young to pursue my love for wildlife and always pushing me to pursue my dreams. You are the best mom anyone could wish to have. I love you, Mom!

Published 2014 by Medallion Press, Inc.

The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO

is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

Copyright 2014 by Bud DeYoung and Cindy Martinusen Coloma

Cover design by James Tampa

Edited by Lorie Popp Jones

Interior photos supplied and printed with permission from the DeYoung family

Photos on pages VII, XII, 6, 87, 105, 154, 160, 181, 190, 200, 203, 204, 234, 250, 252, 254, 256 by James Tampa

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Typeset in Georgia

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-160542-637-2

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

Since childhood, Bud DeYoung had a passion for animals. At the young age of eight, he brought kids home from school to see his little zoo. When Bud was fifteen, he traded the family beagle for a monkey. This was the beginning.

Today on his own property in Michigans Upper Peninsula, Bud runs a zoo that has been open to the public since 1988 and is featured in a television series called My Life Is a Zoo on Nat Geo WILD. Along with Big Cat Carrie, Bud cares for over two hundred happy critters, from Bengal tigers to arctic wolves to a very hungry hippo named Wallace. Together Bud and Carrie educate the public about animal conservation, battle harsh winters and blazing summers, and daily dole out love to the hundreds of animals in their care. Through Bud and Carries daily sacrifice, animals find rescue, people are inspired, and Bud DeYoung and Carrie Cramer know the fulfillment of living and building upon their dreams.

You can visit Bud and Carrie at the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace, Michigan, and online at TheDeYoungFamilyZoo.com.

Carrie and Bud spending time outside with Louie the chimp.

Carrie and Bud taking animals out for an educational talk at the zoo.

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to Carrie Cramer, my love. You have always backed me. Your passion and dedication made my zoo grow to where it is today and helped guide me through writing this book.

Thank you, Cindy Coloma, for putting my words, my life, into a book. You are a talented writer.

And thank you to all the wonderful people and animal lovers who have always supported and continue to support my zoo.

Bud DeYoung

An enormous thanks to my mom and grandma, Gail McCormick and Ruby Duvall, for enormous amounts of help on this project from transcribing to babysitting. And I cant forget Papa too! I truly couldnt have completed this without you.

My husband, children, sister, parents, all my family and friends are such a support and source of inspiration. I cant thank you enough, and it would be pages to do so here.

My editors at Medallion, Emily Steele and Lorie Jones, were wonderful to work with. Emily, I greatly appreciated your encouragement and guidance along the journey, and it was a pleasure getting to know you. Lorie, your line edits were excellent as always, and its always a gift to be around you.

Through the process of writing this book with Bud DeYoung, I was so impressed and amazed at Buds and Carries love, sacrifice, and devotion to animals of every kind. These people give their hearts and lives to every one, whether a chicken or a hippo. It was unlike anything Ive ever seen. I wish for them great blessings, hordes of volunteers, and financial support to no endas you deserve in your quest to save animals and give people a new understanding of both the domestic and wild kingdoms. Oh, and some milder winters would be nice too. Bud and Carrie, you have my unending admiration. Thank you for welcoming me into your crazy livesit was an honor.

Cindy Martinusen Coloma

Part One

The Passion

Chapter One

Early Rising

I wake to animals.

This morning, its a chimp crawling on my head.

Ive never been one to linger in bed, but two-year-old orphan Louie is an insistent alarm clock and makes slow waking impossible. He stretches out my ears, tugs the bit of short-cropped hair I have left, and if I wait much longer, hell dump everything from the dressers onto the floor.

I cant remember a time when a baby hyena, wolf, bear cub, monkey, or other exotic creature didnt share my bed. My fiance, Carrie, and I have had eight years of animal housemates. Before that, my years can be marked by my children growing up and the myriad of animals passing through the doors of the house and the habitats all over my land.

Its still before dawn. Carries already gone, the bed cold on her side. Two horses came in late to her rescue ranch. They were in bad shape from malnutrition and abuse. Shell be tending to them day and night between everything else. Last year she saved two Clydesdales that were shot by their owner and left for weeks to rot and die. The calls for help come in daily, and neither of us knows how to manage everything or to say no.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Carrie ever made it to bed at all.

The cost of feed tugs at my thoughts as much as Louies strong fingers prying at my mouth. I kick off the covers, and Louie jumps, cheering. He climbs up my aching back onto my shoulders.

Lets get you some breakfast, I say and give him a friendly rub on the arm.

Quite literally, my life is a zoo. For the past forty-odd years, Ive built the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace, Michigan , on first forty, now sixty acres surrounding this eight-hundred-square-foot house constructed in 1979.

In the past few years, Carrie launched her no-kill Pipers Rescue Ranch. Its located on leased land adjacent to mine that might soon be sold out from under her. The rescue grew out of the zoo, from people bringing pets they didnt want or couldnt care for any longer. Weve taken in chickens, turtles, iguanas... You name itweve probably had it.

After the coffee is set to brew, Louie pounds my shoulder as I make his bottle. I focus on the day ahead. I thank God its busy this month. August has brought us more visitors . Those visitors get me out of bed, bones creaking and an ache in my back. I love introducing people to animals of every kind. I want them to get close, learn something new, and leave with a fresh appreciation for the animal kingdom. Thats why I started the zoo, or maybe the animals started it all.

The busy month is a bit of hope after a horrendous July when a heat wave kept the visitors away. We dropped behind forty-four thousand dollars in one month. Thats money to get us through the coming winter. Not only Carrie and me but four hundred hungry animals at the zoo and the ones Carries harboring at the rescueI reckon its at least several hundred and growing.