Picking Up The Pieces Of Your Heart (confronting images)

What would you think if you saw a 21 year old girl in jeans, a turquoise dust 'n' boots shirt, and Rossi boots walking toward a lamb with a rifle? What would you think as you watched her insert the magazine and flick the safety off? What would you think if you heard her ask her father for instructions on exactly where to shoot an animal to put it down as quickly and as painlessly as possible? What would you think if you watched this girl practice cutting an animals throat, on a sheep that's already been shot, so that she doesn't put a living animal through any unnecessary pain when a gun isn't at hand? What would you think as you heard the dull yet piercing thud of the bullet ending that lambs life? What would you think as you watch the last reflexes make the lambs body jerk and stutter? As their bowels release? As the blood leaves a stain on the ground? What would you think seeing her tow the carcass away from the mob of sheep? 

Would you be shocked? Would you be amazed? Would you think it was normal everyday life? Would you think it was despicable? Would you think 'why isn't a vet doing that'? Would you be proud to see a woman taking on that role? Would you turn away? Would it scar you or scare you? Would you cry or try and stop me? 

Let me tell you something. I have thought every single thought I just wrote, and more. I have questioned absolutely everything I do on this farm, and continue to do so regularly. In my opinion the facts are this; the human race desires and possibly even needs meat in their diet (I cannot attest to that scientifically, but I personally function better with meat in my diet). To provide this, animals will be farmed. That is a truth, an inescapable truth. The human race is too large to be supplied with meat through subsistence living. Not every person has the space or meets the requirements to humanely rear an animal to grow what they desire as far as meat is concerned. I ask you this, if you understand that farming animals is an inescapable truth, who would you prefer to rear your animals? Someone who questions the morality of what they do, who tries unendingly to improve the way their animals are cared for? 

There are practices within the stock industry that are not pretty, that are not necessarily painless. Never has the phrase 'cruel to be kind' applied to a situation so weIl. I am not suggesting that innovation is a bad thing, I fully support improving animal welfare wherever we can. What I ask of you is that you work with us. Work with the farmers, the transport companies, the live exporters, the abbatoirs and the stock men and women who handle the animals along their way to the plate; to ensure they live the healthiest, happiest and least painful life possible. 

The reality of what happens if you don't work with us, if you work with those who would impose all out bans on certain practices instead of making improvements, is harsh and horrible. If we are not allowed to mules a lamb, or don't have a more humane procedure for removing the wool from the tail region I can guarantee this is what will happen. 

This lamb died from fly strike before I could get to it to treat it or put it down.

This lamb is still alive. If your first reaction is to point the finger at me, hear me out. We breed our Merino sheep so that they have as little wrinkle as possible, so that they don't have fleece rot, so that they have as bare a breech (tail area) as possible. We manage our stock so they have the least amount of worms possible, which results in the least amount of dags possible. We remove anything we can that is appealing to a fly. We check our stock as regularly as possible to monitor any fly activity and treat anything we see on the spot, if it won't make it, we put the animal down. If you can see a flaw in the system we use, please point it out to me, as I'm happy to be shown a way that I could improve the life of stock on this farm. If you can't then please don't point your finger at a farmer, at a truckie, at a live exporter, or at a stock man or woman when you see something shocking like this. There is one thing I truly believe in and that is the way I feel when I have to put an animal down or see an animal that I haven't been able to care for properly. I trust that every person in the stock industry feels for animals the way I do, they wouldn't be in the industry if they didn't enjoy working with and caring for stock. 

Put yourself in my Rossi's for just a moment, that's all I need, just one moment. Imagine it's you slamming the ute door as you stride across the paddock with a rifle in hand. Imagine it's you that has to fight back tears as you see a poor weak animal struggling to stand because it's fly struck, because mum rejected it, because a fox has had a go at it. Imagine you have to deal with this regularly. Imagine feeling your heart break into a thousand pieces as you line up the spot on the back of their head and pull the trigger. Imagine it's you that has to help them out of their misery and it's you that takes the time to do it from behind so they don't see it coming. So they're not scared. Now imagine having to steel your soul as you walk to the second animal and do the same for it. Imagine feeling your heart shatter more than once in a day. Now imagine something worse than that, imagine finding an animal freshly dead, an animal you'd specifically gone back to treat or put down. Imagine knowing it suffered because you weren't quick enough, because you didn't have a knife or a gun with you to start with. The pain that rips through your heart and your soul when you can't help an animal is irreparable, it leaves a mark. Imagine it's you that takes yourself out to the back paddock at the end of a day like this. That you sit there for an hour crying until you feel like vomiting, that the keening noise you make scares the birds out of the trees. Worse still, imagine an industry that doesn't have people that care for animals this much.

All I ask of you as a 21 year old woman in the stock industry is not to fight us in our efforts to help these animals live healthy, happy lives, but to work with us. Donate to companies that are trying to increase animal welfare; by testing new alternatives to mulesing, by improving the ships animals are exported on, by educating the abbatoir workers overseas, by using stock crates on trucks that are more user and stock friendly, by providing courses for improving stock handling. Support those that are actively involved in improving animal welfare, those that are having a positive effect in the industry. I would not want to be part of a world that pushes for restrictions to be placed on the stock industry that result in farms and stations going bankrupt, that results in people not having the cash flow to feed their animals, that maybe even results in such a severe lack of funds that buying bullets to put animals down is not possible.