Life and Death


 While it sounds dramatic life on a farm of any size is about life and death and how well you manage the turmoil around that. 

Now for starters this image is about life, this little bloke is doing great, he is an example of life. Then he is a boy and too many boys are not good on a farm, and unfortunately his dad is a bull from an adjoining farm so this little guy wont be staying with us. Although a pure bread lowline angus he is still a boy and we have a big boy already so from the moment this little guy hit the ground and I checked the calf's sex, he was always leaving. If the calf had been a girl, then is would be staying, that is life and my mates would argue, rolling their eyes, "that would be bloody right, women". 

Also this week, well over the last few weeks, we have been hatching chickens and turkeys from some incubated eggs. It's so easy to get attached to little fluff balls. Of those hatched we have one with a twisted foot which we have all bandaged up trying to straighten it but it's not really working, the chicken gets around ok but it's not perfect and we really have to decide will it have a satisfactory life or not and do we send it on it's way. Another little chicken caught it's foot in the most unusual of places and clearly broke it's foot, again we have it all bandaged up and set with splints but again the decision has to be made do we let it go on if it's struggling. 

So the story goes, each week, each month and each year. What stays, what goes. I say to people we have some 58 pets on this farm and selfishly, I hope I live longer than everyone one of them. I will see more life and death yet but I'll never get used to it. It may well appear on the outside that farmers are hard, unemotional, detached from life and death but you can bet they are just better at hiding their emotions  than others are.  

We that live in the country, that keep and breed animals are just as sensitive as city folk that have had to put a life long pet down. It hurts, but when we took control of our farms we knew there would be hard decisions to make, and we make them, we have to. 

The vegans call us monsters, protest against us, throw fake blood at us and invade our properties then go back to the city with their designer clothes and imported leather shoes, sit in cafes chewing down on our produce and despise everything we are, to whoever will listen. 

We are not monsters - life and death - we hurt just the same as everyone else.    

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