While I was down in Ontario this week I saw a bumper sticker that said “I won’t eat anything with a face”. Well, me neither. If your steak still has a face… you’re doing it wrong!
SO… If you are from PETA or are easily upset by the requirements of life on a working farm or don’t really want to know where your food comes from … please skip to the next post. If you read this post and THEN feel it necessary to make a comment on how cruel these activities are; just remember… you have been warned.
It’s a beautiful spring day in Far-Eastern Oregon. This is a picture of Ontario’s local landmark, the Malheur Butte. I took this picture from my In-laws’ driveway just after sunrise. Western Oregon is beautiful, green and lush. But Eastern Oregon is just (if not more) beautiful, don’t you agree?
Grandpa has told the kids that he can use their help with a little project this morning.
This (February/March) is lambing season for my father-in-law. This pair of lambs are about 2-weeks old. Aren’t they cute? I want you to notice 2 things about this picture; Mama has a short tail, and Junior has a long tail. Sheep are born with long tails, that (amongst other things) will be changing for Junior momentarily. As I mentioned in an earlier post, while I grew up in this very rural farming community I was a ‘town kid’. I was dating my wife when I first learned about what happens to this little lambs tail. 15+ years later and I still haven’t got a straight answer as to why the tails need to be removed. In order to reduce the stress on Mama and Junior they both will receive their official ear-tags and vaccinations.
That’s Bud, my father-in-law’s well trained sheep dog. Bud is laying there waiting for his next instructions as to where that little gaggle of sheep need to be. I love watching Bud (or his predecessor, Jacob) work .
Here is The Boy and Daughter #1, now that they have caught the lambs he told them to get, Grandpa is coming to get this piece of equipment.
The small green ‘rubbers’ are placed on this tool which opens them up wide enough to place it at a specific location on the lambs’ tail in order to ‘dock it’. They are also used to castrate the little bucks. The ‘rubber’ cuts off the circulation of blood to the appendage and it falls off after a few days. According to some quick Googling.. this method is considered the most humane way to accomplish these tasks.
Then Mama gets her ear-tag.
By my estimation, Grandpa has a couple hundred head of sheep and maybe 75-100 lambs. The ground inside the pens are littered with these…
(Daughter #3 is such a ham) For those of you who guessed Lambs’ tails from yesterdays Wordless Wednesday, you were right. While there were dozens of these tails, we couldn’t find any ballsacks. Where do they go?
Okay, first of all cruel my ass. Anyone who has spent any time at all on or around family farms knows that cruelty is the last thing that happens. These farmers take better care of their livestock than their kids often times. If you want to get up in arms about farming and cruelty to animals and such you need to start by examining the factory farm process. Okay, end rant from this farm kid and grandson of a family dairy farmer!
The reason why the tails tails need to be docked is purely hygienic. ( If you are of a delicate nature stop reading now ) Put simply sheep are quite often the victims of less than solid feces or even diarrhea. As the lamb becomes a sheep their wool grows and with a full tail the wool on the tail becomes caked with feces. Not only can this reduce the value of the wool if the feces is transferred from the tail to the rest of the pelt, but it can cause physical problems. I have read of sheep who had their tails get caked over their rectum and vagina causing a situation of rot and eventual destruction of the animal.
Yes, sheep have lived for eons in the wild without having their tails removed, but we are talking about domesticated farm animals here. The farmer wants the best ROI he can get, thus the removal of the tail. As to the castration, that just makes for better meat — YUM!
Thank-you Chris. And amen to the comment about working farms. I am continually amazed by those who do not want to know where the milk, hamburger and ham comes from before it hits the shelves down at Safeway.
I have seen some pretty heinous things that can go wrong with a sheep and its wool… blue tongue and the wool becoming a maggoty mess. But the visual you paint takes the cake. You would have to agree though, that one of the cutest things on the planet is a lambs tail and the way it shakes while nursing.
I was thinking that the lost tails would make a nice key fob. Wash & dry them then attach a golden end thing. They can be sold as LUCKIER than a rabbits’ foot… the sheep is still alive (for now).
I knew the reason for the castration… same concept with a steer (yum!) and oh don’t I love the free supply of lamb chops and leg o’ lamb, etc. (double yum!)
I’m also fanatic about animal cruelty as practised on factory farms, but know that traditional farmers take good care of their livestock. Therefore I only consume animal products that come from these kind of farms (it’s healthier for you too) or hunted game.
Glad you had fun on the farm! We always used to have some bottle fed lambs, whose mothers had died or were unable to nurse. It was such a special chore to feed the greedy lamb his bottle twice a day!
There were a couple bummer lambs that were born right before we got there. It’s amazing how strong those little guys are! They could take the bottle right out of your hand if you don’t have a good grasp of it.
oh… and the wagging tails.
So Cute!