Friday cures all?

[altivo]

As I expected, I felt much better this morning. However, after going to work and trying to catch up all day, I didn't feel all that good when I got home. Nonetheless, it's an improvement.

Little Bandit got banded when I got home. Hopefully done effectively this time.

We just saw a very large raccoon in the yard, gleaning missed bits under the bird feeders. Birdseed? Can't a raccoon find better stuff at this time of year?

It's hot. It's steamy. Abnormally so for the time of year. My hair is frizzed so much even I can't believe it. That's some high humidity.

Tomorrow just farm work. Sunday is a guild spinning demo, and the weather doesn't sound too great for an outdoor event. We'll have to see...

Comments

[schnee]

Oww. I hope your little Bandit will recover soon (and that the whole thing wasn't too traumatic/painful for him).

[altivo]

Really, you should relax about this. It's far less barbaric than the things humans do to each other (like circumcision and piercings for instance) and I've never even seen any sign of complaint from the lambs. They don't seem to notice it at all. There's no cut, no blood, and never even a squeak. No struggle or complaint. When we put them back down, they behave as if nothing happened, and just go back to whatever they were doing.

I realize it seems unnatural, and I wish it weren't necessary. But the alternative is overpopulation or else a life in which the sheep is denied access to a flock. Being part of a flock is not only natural, but essential to the sheep's psychology and instinct.

Also, from my personal observation, I can tell you that it reduces their sexual behaviors but doesn't eliminate them. They still do everything they would do, but with less intensity. This prevents not just pregnancy, but injuries, and eases social interactions. A ewe generally is the leader of a flock in the sense of being the one who moves first, deciding where they will graze and where they will rest. Rams often compete viciously for sexual privilege and in a flock the dominant rams will not only abuse and bully the weaker males, but will keep them isolated and frustrated. When most or all of the males are wethers, everything is much more friendly and familial. Rivalries have less edge, battles end quickly, and grudges seem to be rare.

Most sheep are, well, sheep. The proverbial things are true. There's not a very bright light upstairs, and it's rare to find a genius who reasons anything out or plans it in any obvious sense. In a way, being a shepherd is like caring for mentally deficient children. We have to make some decisions for them.

It's interesting to me how aptly the sheep and shepherd analogies of the religious traditions can fit when looking at the behaviors of churches, religious prelates, and theocratic societies. Alas, I don't find that analogy an appropriate one for humans or for non-humans of greater intellectual capacity (such as elephants, canines, whales, or even horses for the greater part.) But domestic animals like the sheep or the chicken no longer have the ability to survive well without our intervention and care. We've made ourselves gods to them, and have a responsibility to act accordingly at times.

[schnee]

Hmm, you're reading too much into what *I* said now.

I'll take your word for it if you say it's not painful/traumatic (you obviously have more experience there than I do), although it seems counterintuitive to me. (FWIW, in German law, there is a loophole that allows the castration of pigs and other livestock until the age of two or four weeks or so without the use of anesthetics etc.)

Obviously, castration of livestock is a necessity in practice, too; I didn't debate that. I'm not happy that it's necessary, but I can see why it is, and honestly, if we're going to kill e.g. pigs, then castrating them doesn't seem that much worse. I'd still hope it's done without pain or suffering or stress, though (both the killing and the castration).

[altivo]

I wouldn't have replied in such length, but you expressed concern repeatedly so I wanted to reassure you.

I agree about killing. I try not to eat much meat, and we don't kill or eat our sheep at all. In many respects, we are giving them a much better life than most farm animals have. Our vets and other farm people who visit us for any reason always laugh at how we are "running a luxury hotel" for our animals.

Pigs are particularly difficult, both because they are far more intelligent than sheep and have much more complicated needs. My direct exposure is limited to what I learned in college and the small amount of handling I had to do there, plus a few isolated childhood experiences, but I would never consider taking responsibility for any swine. Even goats raise too many issues for me. Sheep and poultry I can handle.

The horses and dogs are on the level of human companions to me, and are treated as children or siblings. Cats are cats. They choose us, we don't choose them. Mostly they do as they wish and ignore us, and my imposition of rule on them is largely limited to denying them access to areas or objects I don't want them to damage.

[schnee]

*smiles* Thanks for the reassurance, then.

And yeah, that sounds about right. Not that I have any first-hand experience with any farm animals; my godfather had a farm (and pigs), but that's about it. It's not exactly a lot of experience of my own to draw on, but what you say fits right in with what I've heard from others.

I'm curious, though. I've not really heard anything abotu goats, so what issues would they raise, specifically?

[altivo]

Goats are smarter and more independent than most grazing animals, at least in many cases. Some of the modern breeds have been selected to take these traits out of them and make them more like sheep or even chickens, but most of the traditional goats are rather like donkeys and pigs in their behaviors and intelligence.

I find them rather admirable in many respects, but don't feel the kind of kinship with them that would make me want to keep them around and deal with the ethical issues it would raise. The babies are cute, but the adults are rather like alien intelligences that can be very hostile or just benign and uninterested. The sheep are symbiotes: I give them food and shelter, they give me wool. I'm not sure I'd have a mutual trade relationship with the goat tribe. ;p

[schnee]

OK. :) I think that goats can be quite cute even when they're adult, but "independent and intelligent" is not necessarily the best combination of traits in an animal that does not also form a social bond with you (like a dog does) — at least if you're required to stay together, e.g. on a farm.

Goats could provide you with wool as well, though — cashmere or mohair. In theory, I imagine you could also get milk from them (but then, the same's probably true for the sheep).

Oh, and lest I forget, I saw a flock of sheep on a meadow near the road recently when I was out biking and thought of you. They had some young lambs who were frolicking and jumping around, too — very cute indeed. :)

[altivo]

Lambs are as cute and innocent as tradition and literature would have us believe, yes. One easily feels the same kind of responsibility for them as we'd feel for human children. Or puppies. I think "symbiosis" really is an apt description for the connection between us and some domestic animals.

You're right about goats producing usable wool. It's not without reason though that mohair and cashmere are much more expensive than sheep's wool. The yield of usable fiber is lower, and the care and feeding of fiber producing goats is much more demanding.

Cashmere is best produced in climates other than what we have here (usually high altitudes and dry cold.) Cashmere production is not consistent in breeding either, so all the offspring of a good cashmere goat do not necessarily produce fine wool.

Mohair is easier and more consistent, but to be frank, I don't care for the fiber. It is coarse and scratchy, even though valued for its shiny character and ability to take bright colored dyes.

Alpacas would interest me more, except for two things. First, in the US at least there's a cartel mentality about them, which has overvalued the animals by five to ten times what any individual animal could produce in fiber in its entire lifespan. It has become a pyramid scheme to produce more animals and sell the animals at excessive prices, promising to buyers a huge profit ratio that can only be achieved by breeding more alpacas and selling them. That bubble is bursting now. As a consequence, and the second reason, alpaca fiber is readily available and often quite inexpensive. It's nice stuff, but heavier and warmer than sheep's wool and thus less flexible in application.

I've actually developed a great fondness for the vegetable fiber sources in recent years. If I didn't have the sheep already, I'd probably be focusing almost entirely on cotton and linen now. I could even grow my own linen here. (Not cotton, which requires a much more tropical climate, but is readily available.)