Apologies to the 3 or 4 of you that read this, i know its been a while since the last one. I was half waiting until i had something interesting to put and then when i did i was too tired to write anything! So its probably going to be another long one.
First of all and most importantly for me we finally have some lambs! there are quite a few now, including some sets of triplets which means we also have some orphans as the mothers can't support all three. Unfortunately we have also lost a few mothers so we have more orphans, the first one we had was because the mum had a prolapse and died, he has turned out a little funny his head is always cocked to one side and at first he could only walk around in circles and hardly support himself like a little bambi, we have since discovered he is blind. He is everyone's favourite lamb and is named Toni after one of the interns. There are a few of us who are bottle feeding the orphans as it has to be done at 7:30, 11:30, 3:30, 6:30 and 9:30. Its a lovely task though as they can get quite snuggly especially when they are tired and they make little baby gurgling noises. I also had a sad experience with the lambs recently when we had just checked over the lambing field to make sure all the expectant mothers were ok and then we walked past one of the pens with a mum and baby in and the farmer was desperately trying to save a new lamb, he had found it half out of the mum and it wasn't breathing, he was rubbing it with straw to try to warm it up and even giving mouth to mouth but nothing worked and he had to give up. He then handed it to me as it needed to go in a bag and had to hold it, it was quite heavy and still wet from the birth and wasn't a pleasant sight. Unfortunately that is just something that happens and you have to get on with it.
On my first real day on livestock i also had to carry a pig that had just died, we found her when she was sick when we were doing the morning feed and when we came back she had crawled into the shed and died. We had to carry her into the trailer and then later after she had been disected, lift her into a freezer, the smell was horrible and it was a disgusting sight with all the blood sloshing around and her organs showing. It was a strange introduction to livestock.
I am however very much enjoying my two days a week on livestock which i managed to negotiate. Its nice to work at a different pace and you pretty much have to go with the flow as things come up as the day goes one, animals being born, dying, escaping their pen. The pigs still scare me but im trying to be brave with them and the people i work with are really supportive and helpful. Last week we had to catch a lot of piglets so that they could be tattoed to keep track, im not very good at catching them so i was the one who held them while they were tattoed, pigs don't liek to be picked up so they squeeled a lot, and some of them left behind a nice present on my jacked and trousers because they were a bit stressed. There is one pig names pyscho because when there is food around she goes mental and chases more than the others and has been known to bite, i havn't yet plucked up the nerve to get into her pen and feed her so i think that might to be this weeks task. Apparently the trick is to pour some feed into her mouth to distract her then run to the straw where the rest of the food is spread.
Ive noticed now when i eat pork it tastes especially piggy, i think its a combination of it being particularly good meat and also i think the smell of the live pigs isn't so dissimilar to their cooked smell, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable after spending the day with them but at the same time i think thats how it should be, i came to learn more about food and farming and i am now doing exactly that.
I think that is most of the animals news i have so im going to leave it there.
No comments:
Post a Comment