Lambs: the stolen generations

PICTURED: Raphael the guard alpaca* leads this season's lambs out towards the green fields to start their lives as adult sheep. They are leaving their mothers behind. In this blog we ask the question: do animals have human emotions? Walt Disney thought so.

For visitors from outside Australia, we have an issue called "The Stolen Generation" which refers to the way children of indigenous people (our Australian Aboriginals) were taken from their parents from the 1930s onwards until the 1970s. They were placed in schools or jobs with the white man and many were abused sexually and physically. It was a form of cultural genocide. They were forbidden to speak their native language, forbidden to contact their parents. Cut off from their culture, they were to "assimilate" (or become whites under their black skin). The governments and people who did this believed the entire race was on the brink of extinction from disease and depression. Famous historian Henry Reynolds reported that, by 1930, there were only around 30,000 left of the estimated 300,000 to 500,000 indigenous people who were inhabiting Australia in 1788 when white man arrived to conquer the land for the British kings and queens. Everyone thought the black race was on the way out, so they sought to save the children. Unfortunately they blundered badly and many people's lives have been destroyed. Other countries around the world did the same thing at around the same time. I mention this because it won't be long before PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals) start accusing Australian wool farmers of creating stolen generations everytime they wean their lambs. By giving the animals human personalities - like WALT DISNEY did - they argue that the animals are being distressed, tortured, and mistreated when some of the simplest practices of animal husbandry are pursued.
PETA activisists suffer from a psychological condition called "Compulsive Anthropomorphic Disorder", a trick of the mind that involves projecting into other living beings the personality traits of human beings. They obsess to a neurotic degree about the imagined emotional state of animals. It is anthropocentric thinking, and it is disconnected from reality. PETA would have no animal husbandry at all because surely the animals should be allowed to roam free, going wherever they want to go? Farmers imprison them behind fences, force them to have sex (the male animals rape the females, or at the very least they're pushy and only interested in one thing), and they take their babies away from them. Well I'm here to tell you the ewe in the middle of this photograph told me the mothers are heartily sick of their lambs by the time we wean them. SHe said; "Imagine having a half grown sheep rushing you every 15 minutes without warning and butting you in the udder to suck from a depleting milk supply. The ewes say "Baaaaa... Bring my lamb baaaaaack (only kidding)." She's such a joker.
PETA organised a boycott of Australian wool because of the practice of "muelsing" in which a fold of hide - not skin - from the backside of the lamb is cut off - like circumcision - to stop the blow flies laying their eggs in the folds. The eggs hatch into maggots which burrow into the flesh and eat the lamb alive. This form of circumcision is the most humane way we have to prevent fly strike. We could wait till the flies lay their eggs and apply toxic chemicals. And they are experimenting with plastic clips that stop the blood supply to the folds and they fall off. Either way, no one likes muelsing. It's a bloody business and the lambs look unhappy. Like kids going to the dentist. But they recover in a day of two and the alternative is ghastly. We use fly traps to keep the fly population down. But no country has blow flies other than Australia.
Here's my challenge to PETA: Why don't you organise a boycott against Israel and all the Jewish businesses in Nu Yark as a protest against the practice of male circumcision? Cutting bits off little human babies! Are the interests of sheep more important than the interests of humans?
Every generation has a percentage of people susceptible to delusions and hallucinations, such as thinking Bambi and Mickey mouse were real animals. City-based cultures act as hot houses for them because the people there live lives disconnected from the rigid discipline of Mother Nature. I am sure there are many there who think their civilisation could survive without agriculture. They can eat and wear money instead. Bon appetite!



PICTURED: Olivia Kemp, the Diana Palmer of Uamby (my son Daniel is The Phantom) travels 10 hours from her job with the Victorian Department of Primary Industires in Bendigo to share the heat and flies and dust with Daniel and the dogs.


FOOTNOTE: *We have 2 alpacas guarding the pregnant ewes and lambs. Bruno was in such a hurry he rushed ahead of the lambs and missed out on having his photo taken. They can be quite aggressive in chasing foxes and dogs away from the flock. They keep us on our toes, too.