sheep
I was, at 23, married to a shepherd/farmer. In the middle of lambing, my husband caught a cold, which, due to the hours he was working quickly progressed to pneumonia and pleurisy ( I think one is an infection of the lungs, the other is of the lining)

There wasn't really anything I could do apart from take over the night shift of being midwife to 800 ewes (as well as work two day jobs and run the house, and care for my two kiddies)

Imagine getting up for work at 7 am, dropping one kiddie off at school, the baby off at the gran's, working half a day at the school, the other half in the office job, picking kids up, getting home, cook tea, bathe them, put them to bed, get some housework done, get out to the lambing shed at 8 pm and work til 5 am....then get up at 7 am...etc etc...I have never ever been so tired.

One night, I see this hideous Rouge Cross (look the fucking ugly things up) struggle and strain...I calm her, have a bit of a furtle, and bring out this tiny, malformed freak of a lamb - this thing was probably 8 inches long (bearing in mind lambs are normally born bouncing crazy things, at least 10 pounds in weight, up on their feet in no time) it wasn't even breathing.

When sheep give birth, first off you see this fat tear drop shape bag of fluid (I used to call them water bombs), looks a bit like bloody piss - each lamb has its own bag - then you see its little feet - and each lamb plops out, sometimes you have to tickle their nose with a bit of straw to get them to sneeze all the mucus out of their airways, or rub their ribs, but usually ok.

Anyway, in this case, the lamb was just a streak of failed development - but the ewe was obviously in agony - so I furtled a bit more and pulled out more of these water bombs, and more, even worse mis-shapen freaks of nature - as I said, I was absolutely exhausted - the time was about 4 in the morning. I was aware of another ewe coming over to me and just lying down next to me (very unusual, even when you're Ms Doolittle like I was) I was so preoccupied with the ugly French sheep squitting out these awful foetuses - there were 7 in all.

I eventually got all of it out, and as she wandered away looking for food, I wiped my hands down my jeans, panting a bit with the effort and the emotion. I looked down at the Texel ewe (cute dutch sheep that really do look like teddy bears) and could see a pair of little lamb feet sticking out - she was really straining - Texel lambs are often massive - and just got a grip on his heels and pulled him gently out.

He'd been asphyxiated by her contractions - the poor little dude was cold and purple in the face.

I will never forget her lying so patiently next to me as I fucked about with that awful fucking horrible sheep.

I kneeled in the straw and bawled my eyes out.
It makes me cry even now - it's so rare for a sheep to come and lie next to you - willing you to help her - and I had failed so badly. That dead body I held had more effect on me than any other body I've seen in my life.

I've lost close friends, I've even lost my mum, but holding that beautiful little lamb that didn't even get chance to take a breath affected me more than those - because it was in a completely different way - I felt I had let a baby die.

It was not long after this that the whole 'farming' 'eating meat' thing, really got to me, and I could not reconcile the job that I did, with someone buying a lamb chop in the supermarket, it fucked my head up so much I gave up eating meat...I couldn't, on the one hand, care so much about the ewes that were giving birth, and the next moment just look at their offspring as units of profit...it really brought it all home to me.
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Sat 1 Mar 2008, 4:18, Reply)