32 A death in the family

By our fourth season we had 80 sheep and they were all beautiful. Cecil and his girls had done us proud. They had made lots more than the current 80 but the extras had been despatched to other properties. The flock included Rambo, a big strong ram not quite as good in wool quality as Cecil but close. He was one of Cecil’s sons who we had preserved to inherit the mantle should Cecil eventually get old. We had kept a second ram to keep him company but he was slightly mad and liked running at full speed into anything solid like a shed wall. Eventually he killed himself.

I found Cecil’s carcass under a small tree in the River Paddock. He showed no signs of damage more than associated with a tough life servicing ewes. Clearly he died happily of a heart attack. Rambo couldn’t wait to use his inheritance and instead of taking it gently and savouring the intimate pleasures of his sisters and mother, he had the circuit of the half flock we allowed him done in a few days.

She didn’t like it, pointing out that it was not only morally wrong, but would result in loss of vigour in the flock and possibly even homosexuality, considering also the river water. We should get a proper ram.

Recently, the bottom had dropped out of the wool market with the diminution of the Soviet armed forces; they didn’t need greatcoats any more. The Italians were making suits from brilliant new polymers that were lighter and warmer than the finest wools and selling them relatively cheaply across Europe, and Australia had just been through some over-productive wool years and the nation’s stockpile was building. Wool was now hardly saleable. Despite its good quality and doubled quantity, our wool was earning less than half the small amount we banked in our first season. It really was time to rethink the business plan again.

26 Marking lambs

The average age of the lambs was six weeks and it was as late as I could leave it to do the business. They have to go through an initiation ceremony that can be painful. It builds their characters and gives them something to talk about in the long hours between meals. Marking involves an injection that protects against six unspellable things, involves putting a rubber ring around the tail and another around the scrotum, drenching, and finally, clipping an ear mark, personalised in shape for your property. Real farmers might include mulesing. They might also chop the tails off with a sharp knife and slit the scrotum to allow removal of the testicles by a suck, bite and spitting process. The dogs love the product and leap on it in frenzy. It supposedly parallels ground unicorn horn in its aphrodisiac power.

Doing these numerous steps yourself requires some organisation. With help it is supposedly easier and she volunteered to do the injections and hold the lambs. The first lamb took around ten minutes including the initial catching and the second catching after the tail band went on. It was fairly close to torture though in some countries it wouldn’t be defined as that. That little pink ear didn’t look half as pretty after I had torn a lump out of it so we dropped marking in favour of ear tagging. In this process which is just as unsavoury, the ear is sandwiched between two 10 cent-sized coloured buttons held together by a rod. The rod works a bit like a rivet. Attaching requires a hygienic applicator that doesn’t work in the hands of someone of poor resolve. The advantage of tagging is that it’s lovely to see all your lambs skipping around with coloured fashion-earrings.

Lamb two was a male which meant two rubber rings and reloading the ring applicator between. The rubber bands can fly off in all directions when you hurry. More importantly, the tiny balls disappear from the scrotum if you have cold hands, or no confidence, and you have to get them back. I had practised this operation when helping a neighbour and had had dummy runs on our own lambs. It’s interesting what some farmers get off on.

The balls came down nicely with a two finger abdominal prod and a gentle reassuring blow in the ear. The rubber rings went on and the balls were nicely captured in the scrotum. And off he ran baaing to mum saying it was nothing really, and don’t I look cute with my ear marker. Ten minutes after ringing the lambs were in agony as the appropriate parts discovered they had no blood supply. They hopped, ran, stopped, lay down, curled up and did yoga. But within half an hour it was back to mum for a drink.

We worked our way through them and gradually perfected the methodology. If I sat down comfortably on a box and cuddled the lamb on my knee on its back throughout the process, and did all the operations, it worked much better. She acted as nurse handing over scalpels, swabs and so on. We did the last ten lambs in the time it took to do the first one. Surprisingly, none of the males turned into rams possibly because they drank the river water.

25 Basil Faulty

Poddying a lamb sounded like a fun thing to do so we drove into Queanbeyan to get the appropriate feeding devices and the two types of milk substitute. One was to be given initially to replace the natural high-powered stuff lambs get as their first feed, the other was the run of the mill stuff that the lamb would get on demand. On demand, surely not, this was starting to be a bad idea.

Basil was hungry. He seemed to think the bottle was great and he especially liked being held close while he was performing. The compound went through quickly coming out the other end as a bright yellow dribble, perfect for sunshine colours on a painting. After a few days of feeding the yellow turned dark and harder and he and we were in business. The problem was we had to return to Canberra as work hadn’t gone away. Basil was totally dependent on us. We squeezed him in a cardboard box, closed the lid and put it on the back seat of the car.

This was ridiculous. He couldn’t be outside on our back lawn in Canberra because he would run away or be eaten by marauding cats or dogs, so we had to have him inside. The sun room with its tiled floor was the only place that could be easily washed free of lamb poo. However, his hooves weren’t designed for slippery tiles and he couldn’t stay upright, doing 4-legged splits acts when he tried to move. He asked for a carpet. An old Indian one seemed to do the trick. The feeding nearly on demand continued and he grew and the magic carpet changed colour. He also became more adept at balancing, clicking around on the floor at a fair rate and distributing his little raisins more widely. The room looked more and more like a paddock. After 3 months it would have been knee deep in organic grass.

He really had to go outside. He wasn’t impressed with that move and the enclosure I built setting up a big baaing din which the neighbours thought was lovely, a reminder of spring. After a couple of weeks he was nibbling grass and really growing. Children came from around the area to see this sight and have a hold and a stroke. Briefly we were famous.

The 28 lambs back on the farm were far less demanding than Basil and were growing better. They had a different shape. Basil was getting bigger but his body wasn’t getting higher off the ground, much like an obese child. He had lumps on his back that lined up with the front legs. His legs weren’t fitting into sockets at the top; the sockets hadn’t developed. Basil really was faulty and his mother was right to ignore him. We had been dealt a bummer. I took him in the shed, closed the door and shot him.

Charlotta was concerned. She warned my partner not to get ill or she too might finish up in the shed. I became widely known as the lamb killer. No neighbours reported the shot to the police despite the signs up the road declaring it a neighbourhood watch area.

It seemed a pity to waste the wool so I skinned Basil very neatly, salted the skin, bought some tannin solution, and started him on the way towards a very small pair of slippers. His body was a bit small to eat. He was the first and last poddy lamb we ever had.