The Tale of Enoch the Ram - our first sheep.

Photo above: Enoch the morning we found him. It was impossible not to instantly fall in love with him.

 We found Enoch one morning standing beside his dead mother in the paddock. He was just newborn with his umbilical cord still wet, looking all forlorn and alone.  He was the sweetest, saddest little thing I had ever seen. The dead ewe belonged to the farmer who was leasing our land from us, so we called him, convinced that this little merino ram would be a valuable animal and the farmer would be very keen to come and collect him. After all, don't merinos have valuable wool and don't those rams cost thousands of dollars?..... The farmer told us to "Throw him back over the fence, he won't live long".  Apparently, not all merinos were very valuable, and most merino rams end up on dinner plates as lamb roasts!  Aahhh, the farmer couldn't be bothered with the hassle of feeding a troublesome orphan who was potentially only worth $90 anyway.

 Of course we couldn't throw away his little life that easily. We felt the burden of responsibility to keep him alive and care for him, the burden any decent human being surely feels when they are confronted with a helpless soul needing saving. So we called the vet and said "What do we do with this little ram?"  as we had no experience with sheep at all, didn't know the first thing about raising an orphaned lamb and were desperate not to fail him. Following the vet's sound advice we took care of Enoch, read all we could about lamb care, talked to farmers, received more than our fair share of poor advice as well as good advice from farmers,  researched, and Enoch kept beating the odds of having amateurs as parents. Soon he was part of the family, living in the house, travelling in the car, thinking he was one of the dogs.

Enoch was raised in the house like a child,  wearing a homemade nappy constructed out of an old pair of panty hose and a torn up towel. He slept on my lap. He slept in front of the fire. He watched TV. He saw himself as one of us and we thought that was sweet.

We received all sorts of advice about what to do with Enoch. Most of the farmers we spoke to wanted to cut something off of him- horns, testicles, tail, skin around his bottom (mulesing!). Nearly all of them thought he would be better if there was less of him. I would not abide the thought of harming him in any way. He was, after all, my third child and as such I would fight like a tiger to keep him from harm. So Enoch kept his horns, and his tail, and his skin....and after the local vet refused to remove his testicles surgically, saying it was 'safer' to just put a rubber band on them, he also got to keep his testicles. As a nurse I have seen men come into hospital with torsion of the testicles. Torsion of the testicle happens when a testicle twists around and cuts off its own blood supply, which leads to ischaemia and death of the testicle if it is not corrected. Ischaemia, or lack of oxygen to cells in the body,  is extremely painful, as anyone who has had a heart attack will tell you! It is painful because it causes lactic acid to build up and this causes very, very severe pain!!! Those men with their twisted testicles are in such extreme agony they would gladly have their testicles cut off with a blunt knife. Being a person of great empathy to the suffering of others, man and animal alike, I shunned the band treatment for my sweet little man.

I cannot for the life of me understand how any decent person can justify hurting another creature, whether it be deemed as "for their own good" or not, if the hurt is not necessary or the results can be achieved in other less painful ways. To cause suffering and pain to another willingly is surely the work of only the souless and the wicked!

Incoming Anti- Cruelty Rant (everybody duck for cover!) :
What is it all this cutting off the tail and mulesing about anyway? If the lamb is destined to go to the meat market, why bother to give yourself the labour and the poor lamb the suffering. They are unlikely to get flystrike before they are dead. None of our sheep are mulesed (except the ones who came to us as adults) and we have never had flystrike on lambs!  Australia is the only country that muleses sheep, but we are not the only country with flies. It does not need to be done, is frowned upon by the rest of the world and is simply no longer an acceptable practice.  IT IS JUST PLAIN CRUEL AND WRONG- nothing anyone says can change the wrongness of this cruel, outdated practice. Give the poor lamb a break and leave it intact to meet its maker.
Rant over, calm returning.

Enoch survives to this day with all the pieces of him he had the day he was born. This has proved a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we are very pleased that he has fathered many big, healthy lambs for us. A curse because he has become a cantankerous ram who enjoys a good head butt. Many a person has fallen prey to Enoch's bad temper. And having been on the receiving end of one of his butts, I can tell you it leaves a bit of a bruise. This problem has developed for several reasons:

Firstly, he was raised as one of us, has never been hurt by us and has no fear of us.
Secondly, we are afraid of him and he can smell it! He is one hell of a BIG ram!
Thirdly, he is confused about what he is- dog, human, sheep and this makes him different from other sheep
Fourthly, he is an intact ram with a bad attitude
Lastly, he is just an arsehole.

We have eleven other hand reared intact rams all now two years old and none of them have attempted to head butt a person, all are friendly and able to be petted, none of them has become an arsehole. But they were not raised inside the house with the family and dogs. They did not get to watch TV, sleep by the fire and drive through McDonald's in the car.

Enoch is a complicated creature!

My best advice to anyone who finds an orphaned ram lamb is this: He will not make a good pet once he weighs 100 kilograms and has a full set of horns and a surly disposition. Put him out with other sheep early, so he knows he is a sheep, but keep interacting with him and showing him the joys of a good cheek rub. A sheep who trust humans but retains a little bit of caution is an easier sheep to manage- easier to manage than a fearless sheep, and easier to manage than a terrified sheep.

Besides, who does not enjoy seeing their flock of sheep come running to you when you call to them, tails circling around like helicopter blades, bleating in excitement at seeing your face!

Photos of Enoch's journey through life:
Above- enjoying the fire on a cold winter's night.

Below: After he was about 3 months old he joined the dogs outside and just became one of them. He even used to join the dogs jumping up at the fence and Baaa when the dogs barked at people walking by!

He used to travel in the back of the car with the dogs, quite happily, although the dogs did not enjoy being stepped upon by his 'knife feet'. He surprised and delighted more than one McDonald's drive through attendant with his Baaa 'hello' out of the car window!

He soon got too big and noisy to stay at our house in town, calling out all day while we were at work, until a neighbour complained and he had to move permanently to the farm. This was a very sad day in all of our lives, and it was very hard on Enoch as he was to be separated from the only flock he had ever known.

The photos below are of Enoch having his last bottle of milk, and joining the four ewes we bought to keep him company at the farm.

 He was about 6 months old and far too big to still be drinking from a bottle, but we all enjoyed feeding him still and he enjoyed drinking it! He was terribly spoilt and loved by us all.

Poor little Enoch. He didn't even know what the ewes were because he had never seen another sheep before. He thought he was a dog or a human. He was incredibly frightened of them for quite a while and pined for us when we left him! Here he is hiding behind my legs, peering out at the terrifying creatures on his lawn! It took him weeks to let them near him and he would run away in fear whenever they approached. On top of this he didn't have us any more. It  must have been a terrible time for Enoch!

Eventually he grew used to them and they formed a nice little flock, but Enoch had changed during this period of adjustment. He was not the sweet and loving little man he had been, but not yet the terribly bad tempered Ram he would become.

Then Enoch developed Pink Eye and because he needed treatment several times a day, and we were working in a town 2 hours away, he had to board at the vets for treatment. This whole process cost us just under $1000! Everyone said we were insane, but he was our pet, like a dog to us. Money is immaterial when you love your pet as we loved Enoch.
We have no idea what changes took place in Enoch's psyche over those two weeks, (we wonder if it had anything to do with the vet being directly across the road fron the abattoir!) but Enoch came home to us a completely changed ram. He had learned how to butt, and seemed to enjoy doing it very much indeed! He now became a problem pet, an administration hassle, and we could no longer walk freely in the paddock with him. This was possibly the saddest moment in our relationship with Enoch. He was no longer our sweet little lamb, and we started to become cautious, suspicious and then afraid of him!

Below:

Back before he was a danger, we had a go at shearing him with our new $800 shears= FAIL!

He looked almost embarassed to be seen with his new haircut!

Below: He used to be so sweet and affectionate and love a cuddle!  Now he would meet your face with his horns and open up your skull to take a look inside!

                                      

Even though he'd butt you as quick as look at you, he still has sweet loving eyes and loves a good rub!

Below: The fully grown and extremely handsome Enoch. A very good sire of excellent quality and healthy lambs! His fleece is 16.5 microns- so he has ultra fine wool. He is still my pride and joy!

ADVICE!

We were given a lot of advice from other farmers about Enoch. The main advice was to have him castrated, but I am pleased he was not castrated as he has proved his worth as a sire.

The other advice was to have his tail removed and to mules him. I simply would not have ever considered such a cruel and pointless exercise. Enoch has been fly struck once, on his hip and back, not his tail and backside. None of the sheep born on our property were ever mulesed and they all kept their tails. In four years we have had six episodes of fly strike in our forty sheep: two on the tail, one on the shoulders, two on rams' heads after fighting and one on a hip.  Mulesing may possibly have prevented two of the six cases- possibly! Sheep who have been mulsed still get fly strike! Keep your sheep crutched regularly and apply a fly strike preventative chemical at times when the flies are bad or your sheep may have dirty bottoms, such as when they start eating green grass again when the rain first comes. You will rarely get flystrike.

 Be kind and gentle to your sheep. Sheep really love a gentle face rub or a rub under the chin or on the chest. Sheep who trust you will actively seek out such affection. If you never gain the trust of a sheep or have a sheep willingly place its face in your hands for a rub, you will have missed out on something truly beautiful. I am quite serious about that- you will have missed out, and so will your sheep. Sheep are sweet natured, affectionate and clever animals, if you give them an opportunity to show you.

I sincerely pity any person who raises sheep for an income and doesn't understand them. Anyone who sees them just as commodities and not as a beautiful, graceful and elegant animal. Whenever I hear someone say that sheep are stupid I know that person does not know sheep. It is something that can only be said out of ignorance and a lack of understanding.  Most people only deal with sheep who are frightened and confused by what is happening to them ( shearing, drenching etc) and any animal who is frightened and confused will act impulsively. Watch what people do when they are confused, frustrated, afraid or in pain. You would not be impressed by their behaviour either! Watch your sheep when they are relaxed and feel safe- you will learn to respect, admire and love them! It is such a shame that some of the people who raise our sheep for wool and meat disrespect them and treat them as chattels. My heart breaks whenever I think about it.  

Below: Enoch enjoying a back rub while he contemplates whether or not to head butt us through the fence....