Wednesday 23 May 2007

Grumpy Old Man on Sheep

When I wrote before about the new lambs coming on i said they were only tainted by a small dab of blue dye, but I'm sorry to say some have large numbers on their backs. This is the opportunity for one of my grumpy-old-man moans. Does the farmer/grazier wear arrows on his uniform? And don't they also have ear tags as well? What next? I'm thinking of forming a new Society for Abolition of Football Shirt Numbers on Lambs and Sheep.

One farmer I worked for on a mixed dairy farm was most scornful about hill sheep farming. He reckoned that apart from time spent during lambing and a period at shearing it wasn't proper work at all. The sheep were shoved up on the hillside and left to get on with things with hardly any supervision. Going on the number of sickly looking sheep and dead ones as well he might have been on to something. Seeing so many sheep allowed to get out from Houndkirk Moor onto the verges on the highly dangerous Hathersage Road makes you wonder who's responsible if people are killed rather than just sheep and lambs - which usually happens.

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