Sheep at the Show and a Small Rant about Things which really Ticked Me off this Week

A goat for good measure

You can't have an ag fair without sheep, and there is a fine showing at this year's Fonda Fair. Here are a few I noticed on the way to the oxen.

Not impressed by all the excitement

Don't they look comfy?

Border Leicesters

I think it is telling that a well-known animal rights group, whose name I won't share so I don't attract trolls, would find the treatment of every single one of the pampered and beloved animals I have shared with this week to be cruel in the extreme. (You know who I mean.) They pitched a fit about an emergency C-section that took place at the Birthing Center at the State Fair.

I guess the calf was structurally compromised in some way and did not survive. However, thanks to the intervention of a team of highly-trained and knowledgeable veterinarians the cow was saved.

With living creatures, no matter how diligently you undertake their care....stuff happens. Heck the ones that are out running wild die in horrible ways....pretty much every single one of them sooner or later. Survival of the fittest rules and eventually all become unfit.

Perhaps this incident did not showcase the simple majesty of a straightforward birth, but I would think that rational beings would see that things go wrong even in the finest human hospitals. I could name you far too many good people who have come home from one with all sorts of infections and ills they didn't have when they went in.

The outcome of this sad bovine birth to me showed the level of concern, caring, and up-to-the-minute technology used by modern farmers in their care for their animals.

However, when your goal is total extirpation of domestic livestock, including pets, nothing is enough. Those sheep? Shoulder deep in fresh bedding, clean, well-fed, and as happy as sheep get....yeah, those sheep.

 They should be running free on the hillsides, cavorting with unicorns.

Of course to anyone who actually knows what a contented sheep looks like, these are downright happy, chewing cud, and resting comfortably. If they were nervous, in pain, frightened, or in any way distressed, they would be standing up at the very least and blatting like bugles, and at worst caroming off the walls of their pens like pin balls. 

I have had sheep. I know this. Most people haven't and don't and thus are ripe for the real exploitation that takes place in the animals rights movement...the exploitation of innocent people who don't understand and so believe whatever they are told.

Those ponies? They should be out running with the wolves and bears, under rainbows, among pots of gold. They must hate the hurly-burly of the show scene right?

Wrong. In so many ways. Little Jack is around thirteen and has never been to a show before. It took him about thirty seconds in the ring to figure out what it is all about.

When he got his big laugh leaping the cavaletti, he tucked his chin and played his audience. Little stinker. Little show off. He was so proud of himself...and.....

He loved it!

When I worked at Saratoga Race Track the stable that employed me claimed a big, chestnut gelding. He showed me how much race horses love the thrill of the chase too. 

He wasn't a big winner, and no one would recognize his name today, but when I was walking him back at the stable he could hear the faint sound of the bugle calling the horses to the post parade. He would always stand on tiptoe, ears pricked, eyes bright and eager, and fairly quiver with the desire to get down there and run.

Animals are so much more than untutored sycophants of animal rights groups, who troll the newspapers and blogs demeaning the people who care for them, give them credit for being.

If they took the time to actually know anything about them, they might begin to understand just the faintest glimmer of the joy of life with livestock...and the bond we share with them when we take the time to learn their ways.