Fatal Deformity....WARNING GRAPHIC PICS.

[Baymule]

Gorman Farm I NEVER intend to dispatch any of my animals.....I just couldn't do it. Maybe there is an element of absolving myself from that responsibility, but I prefer to ask my neighbour who has farmed sheep ever since he left the cradle and knows when they cannot be saved. Also I don't have the means (a firearms licence or a gun), so I don't really have the ability either.

I keep chickens, too, but I don't finish them off myself. Being veggie means that only the dog/cats benefits when they are culled (too many roosters who fight, extreme age etc). As for plucking, skinning and butchering a dead animal, then I have no problem whatever. When the farmer friend suggested we opened the dead ewe to find out as to why the pregnancy had gone wrong, it was me that pierced the head of the dead lamb to confirm the presence of the large amount of brain fluid.

Having witnessed euthanasia by the vet of a number of animals of mine over the years (dogs, cats, sheep) etc. and watched the shooting yesterday, I have to say that the ewe's death was a lot quicker after the shooting (neighbour has had guns all his life) than by the fatal injection. I've also spent all day at an abattoir so that I can see how the industry over here deals with meat production. Though I can handle those things, I could never do them myself.

I guess we all have to operate to our own rules, even if they seem a bit odd to others.

Well said.

 

[cjc]

What @greybeard describes is possibly what I believe happened to my cow/calf. Calf looked similar to your lamb. The calf was also massive, 200lbs at birth, had to give her a c-section to get it out. I tried hard to save my cow and in the end I ended up euthanizing her. The vet told me its just really bad luck, a congenital birth defect. We estimated the calf was dead in my cow for 2 months. The vet said if both animals carry the recessive gene you get what happened to us. Unfortunately that bull I bred my cow to was slaughtered after this.

So sorry about your lamb/ewe. It's really a sad thing. I was really saddened for my cow when this happened to her. Losing a baby animal is one thing but losing its mother as well is really discouraging.