My guys at the auction, awaiting their fate.
"Chapters," said a friend and I quite agree. Our lives are filled with them. Yesterday another chapter of mine came to a close. I said goodbye to 14 of my beautiful lambs, never to see them again in this life. Among them were Pitch, who loved to be scrubbed; Hurricane, who I bottle fed; Mardi, who slid into this world as if he were dead, but we were able to revive him; Mecredi, his brother, who broke his horn scur and I washed the blood from his face to keep the flies off… the list goes on. I know them all and it hurts to see them go.
Livestock auctions – the most loathsome part of the whole business. I cannot express how much I dislike going to them, dislike taking my animals to them, dislike what I see when I’m there, yet the industry revolves around them and all my efforts to avoid them have not prevailed.
This lamb was in a very bad way; under all that wool is nothing but a skeleton.
There are always sheep at the auction who are not so fortunate as my pampered lot. I did not stay to see my group sold, but during the hour I was there, I saw suffering and neglect. Sadly, these sheep can be found at every auction: the crippled, the failing, the starving, the diseased. It pains me. It disturbs me. It puzzles me. It infuriates me.
These sheep didn't merit shearing; their back ends are loaded with clods of poop.
In a downward spiral, industry economics favor these types of producers thus pushing out the caring souls who haven’t the stomach or pockets for it.
I suppose that one of the reasons I want to stay in sheep, is because I know that the animals I raise have the best life I can make for them. And if I don’t provide that for them, perhaps no one else will.
