Small Abattoir Processing Sheep

Here are a few of the photos taken during our visit to a small country abattoir outside of Perth, Western Australia. We were interested to see how a small family run abattoir that processed small numbers of animals operated, compared to a large factory abattoir. I visited a large beef abattoir many years ago and was saddened to see how frightened the animals were before they were stunned. It was extremely busy and noisy and the calls from the other animals were distressing for those waiting in the lanes. I wanted to see if there was a better way to kill our meat animals, causing the least stress possible and achieving a completely pain free and instant death. In Australia, all animals killed for sale as meat have to be killed under strict conditions that satisfy the requirements of Health and Safety regulations. Large animals must be inspected by a meat health inspector while being processed. Unfortunately for most of our meat farm animals this means they are sent to large factory abattoirs for processing. There are a few small abattoirs left in Western Australia that process small numbers of animals and have a meat health inspector visit on kill days. These small abattoirs offer a small meat producer and his animals a few benefits. Firstly, a farmer can stay and observe the entire process from off loading his animals to cutting and packing the meat, so he or she can be assured that the animals have not suffered during the process. Secondly, the sheep can see a familiar face and feel some reassurance. Thirdly, the sheep are processed in very small numbers and well away from the other sheep. They are given an electric shock that stuns them into unconsciousness outside the building and are then pulled through into the processing room. Before they are stunned they do not call out more than is usual for sheep so they do not agitate the others waiting in the yards below. Once each group is processed, another is driven up onto the stunning platform, away from the sight of the other sheep below. The process is much kinder to the animals than what I observed in a large factory abattoir. No process that involves killing an animal is going to be completely stress free unless you shoot your animal through the brain while he is eating some grass in the paddock- which incidentally is how farmers manage animals they kill for their own consumption. Animals killed in such a way can be eaten by the farmer but are legally not able to be sold to a third party. This is where the problem lays. The quickest, kindest and most stress free way to kill an animal is not able to be practiced on animals for public sale. However, my observations at the small abattoir were that, as far as abattoirs go, this is the better option if you are concerned about your animals' welfare.

BE WARNED: There are graphic photos of sheep being processed on this page! If you do not want to see sheep being killed, skinned and cut up, DO NOT LOOK AT THIS POST!!!


The holding yards at the abattoir- undercover. The animals are held for several hours to reduce the stress they have experienced during transport to the facilities. The building looks like a shearing shed and so the sheep will be most likely expecting to be shorn- a mildly stressful, but usually painless (depending on your shearer!) procedure that they know and understand. This helps reduce the stress they feel in the unfamiliar waiting yards.

Managing Livestock so They don’t Become Dead Stock

(Or why you are not exempt from animal welfare laws just because you live on a farm)

Firstly, I must do the disclaimer! I am not a livestock expert. I am not a veterinarian or an agriculturalist. Seven years ago I was a complete novice in the farming world. Now I like to think I have learned quite a bit about caring for these beautiful farm creatures. This information is what I have learned from seven years of watching, looking, listening, and reading all about sheep, cattle and pigs. It is the accumulated knowledge of seven years of owning, caring for and loving my own livestock. As with anything else in the world, do further research to find out for yourself if what I know and believe works for you and your situation!

Anecdote: When we first looked at Morilla with the real estate agent we drove around the whole farm and did notice there were several dead sheep in various stages of decomposition lying about in the paddocks. I commented: “There are a few dead sheep about”, to which the real estate agent replied, without missing a beat: “If you’ve got livestock, you’ve got dead stock”. This seems to be the general attitude of farmers who own vast amounts of land and have large numbers of livestock. If you have 20 sheep it is a tragedy to lose one. If you have 2,000 sheep, who’s counting anyway? To me, every sheep who dies is a terrible loss that probably could have been prevented if I had been more knowledgeable, more mindful or more determined. I do not like to lose an animal because I just failed to care enough.

Having livestock in your life is a great joy and a blessing. It is also a responsibility, both morally and legally. Your farm animals must have the following conditions, the same conditions any other animal in your care requires:

Access to clean fresh water at all times

Access to adequate feed to meet their nutritional requirements at any time

Access to shelter from the sun, wind and rain

Freedom from pain and discomfort

Treatment of any injuries, illness or disease in an adequate and timely fashion

Gentle handling undertaken with all due care and consideration

Freedom from fear and stress

Adequate preventative health measures to ensure good health, such as worming, lice treatment, hoof management, vaccinations etc

Freedom to live a life of quiet contentment while being able to exhibit their natural behaviours as much as is possible.

Biosecurity for your Farm

Farm Biosecurity

Farm biosecurity means preventing the introduction of infectious agents to your property and livestock, preventing the spread of disease agents from an infected area to an uninfected area, and minimising the occurence and transmission of microorganisms of public health significance. Biosecurity and quarantine are vital components of any successful farming system. How seriously you take biosecurity on your property is an individual choice, and strict biosecurity may seem like a bit of overkill- until you introduce a disease or infectious organism to your property and then have to deal with the aftermath. Eradicating some infectious agents is very, very difficult.

Farm biosecurity is about keeping your farm and all of the animals and crops on it free from potential disease. It is the application of various systems and practices in order to prevent the introduction of diseases, pathogens, weeds and other pests onto your farm. It also is the implementation of systems and practices which prevent the spread of these pathogens, weeds and pests from your property onto other people’s property.

Biosecurity is the ongoing day to day application of a set of simple yet essential practices designed to safeguard you lifestyle and livelihood from potential disaster. To be effective you must be uncompromising in the applications of the principles and practices required to ensure the system works properly and does not fail.

 Keeping diseases, pests and weeds off of your farm and out of your business is essential because they reduce your farm productivity and therefore your business income. These diseases and pests can make your animals sick and in order to solve the problem you may be required to pay costly veterinary bills or cull valuable animals and lose irreplaceable bloodlines. Certain diseases have an added risk as they can be passed on to humans, potentially affecting the health and wellbeing of your family and workers.  If the pests and diseases are difficult to eradicate from the land, the value of the land may be reduced, possibly greatly. If large numbers of farms in an area are affected by the pathogens or pests, it can have a flow on effect to markets, domestic and international.

Why is establishing a biosecurity system on your farm important?

The efficient Australian quarantine system and the fact that we live on an island can lead some people to believe that we are relatively safe from potentially devastating diseases and pests. While these two facts do help reduce the risk of new pests and diseases being introduced into Australia and therefore making their way to your farm, they are not fool proof (and there are plenty of fools out there who ignore our quarantine rules) and we already have many devastating and costly diseases and pests in our country.

Some of the pathogens, pests and weeds that cost Australian farmers vast amounts of money, time and stress are:

·         Bovine and Ovine Johne‘s Disease- a muscle wasting disease of ruminants that is rare but endemic in Australia. There is no treatment for this disease and affected animals either die or must be destroyed.

·         Newcastle Disease- a highly contagious disease affecting the digestive, respiratory and nervous systems of birds. Highly virulent strains can cause 100% mortality. This disease is occasionally passed on to humans.

·         Avian Influenza- a contagious disease of birds that occurs worldwide. Severe strains cause sudden and quick deaths in birds. There is no effective cure. It is occasionally transmitted to humans.

·         Classical Swine Fever- a highly contagious disease of pigs last documented in Australia in 1961. The risk however is not eliminated and an outbreak would have disasterous consequences to the Australian Pork industry.

·         Anthrax- a disease caused by spores that may be buried in soils for many years before coming into contact with an animal. It can be passed to humans who come into contact with the carcass of an infected animal. Outbreaks in Australia have only occurred in NSW.

·         Foot and Mouth Disease- is a highly contagious disease of cloven hooved animals. It is one of the most serious livestock diseases in the world. While Australia is considered to be FMD free, outbreaks of this disease have occurred in Australia from 1801- 1872.

·         Intestinal parasites- cost farmers valuable dollars in lost or slowed growth and development in affected livestock, costs to drench animals, and the increasing risk of parasites developing resistance to drenches

·         Prickly Pear (Opuntia stricta spp.) This plant, introduced from the Americas sometime in the early 1800’s became a truly unmanageable menace in NSW and Queensland between 1900 and 1930. By 1925, prickly pear was completely out of control, infesting some twenty-five million hectares in New South Wales and Queensland. It was spreading at the rate of half a million hectares a year. Chemical weed control failed to stop this plant’s advance and it was only with the introduction of a biological weed control in the form of cactoblastis caterpillars (Cactoblastis cactorum) released in 1926 that the prickly pear problem was overcome. Within six years the weed was almost totally eradicated. (http://www.northwestweeds.nsw.gov.au/prickly_pear_history.htm)

Beautiful Country Skies

My Favourite Street

Beverley, Western Australia

Beautiful Beverley- a small rural town about an hour and a half east of Perth, Western Australia.

Coffee Helps with the Fencing. Then the Sheep Join in.

Coffee the orphaned Brahman cow is a little over friendly and likes to get involved in whatever we are doing. The sheep are also very helpful and like to keep us company as we work. We are very pleased that our animals trust us and are not afraid of us in any way....although this can prove trying at times!

Shearing When You Have No Shed

When we first arrived at our new property we had no shearing shed, but we had sheep who needed shearing before we went on a holiday to the USA for 2 months. What a dilemma. We were terribly embarassed by our lack of a shed and suitable place to shear our sheep, but needed to find some generous soul who would feel sorry for us and our sheep and help us out of our bind. We phoned around and finally found a shearer willing to do the job, on the dirt under a tree. What a wonderful man, we thought,and expected some old retiree to come strolling along with an esky full of stubbies and a few yarns to tell.  Turns out we were not correct in our assumptions! The shearer who rolled up to our yards was, in fact, a world champion shearer who travels around the world entering shearing competitions- and doing very well in them too. He ran his own shearing team, worked all week,  and we realised the extent of his kindness to us when he said he was shearing for us on his only day off all week! He did an absolutely fantastic job- almost no nicks or cuts on our beautiful sheep- and we were able to go overseas knowing our sheep would be less likely to get flystrike while we were away. His wife did the wool classing for us and we got nearly $ 2000 from the wool which was a nice addition to the holiday funds! Two very lovely people who were only too happy to help us out in our moment of need.

Setting up the sling and shearing head from a pine post in the ground

Sheep waiting to be shorn

How to Manage a Rain Water Tank

How to Not Get Dysentery from your Rainwater Tanks

A clean rainwater tank is a safe rainwater tank

Collecting and storing rainwater is an ancient practice. It is very common in rural Australia where access to treated scheme water is not available. The common belief is that rainwater is a safe source of pure water. This may be true as the rain falls on your roof, but if you do not manage your rain water tank correctly, you may well be drinking contaminated water. What is so pure and clean about water that collects bird poo, dead frogs and chemical dust and leaves and stores them all, slowly putrifying in a stagnant pool? The main house rainwater tank at Morilla was an ancient concrete structure that did not seal properly and the collection surface was the large shed - the gutters of which were filled with debris. What it needed was to be replaced with a new tank, but instead we decided to drink bottled water, fit an extremely high quality water filter for cooking water and use the tank water only for showering and flushing the toilet. The water surprisingly remained clean and odour free while we lived there, and no doubt any other farmer would have drunk it without a second thought. Maybe it was my nursing past life coming back to haunt me, but I could never bring myself to just drink water straight from that old, unsafe tank. Farmers all around told us that rainwater tanks are ‘self cleaning’, although how this could possibly occur still escapes me. How does a tank clean itself? The only rainwater tank I would trust would be a brand new one I installed and maintained. Then I could be assured of the quality and safety of the water contained within it.

Water in rainwater tanks is not treated with chlorine as the water that comes from the scheme water system is. This allows microbes to breed and thrive in tanks that are not correctly maintained. What you effectively have is a collection of stagnant untreated water that sits in a tank year after year. The tank will collect debris from roofs and gutters including bird faeces and chemical dust which can pass through a leaf net system, and if the tank is not fully sealed, animals will find their way inside and drown. Over time a sludge will form on the bottom of the tank and if this sludge rises to the outlet point, you will be drinking water that contains some of this sludge material. If at any time the water is not clear, odourless and tasteless, you have a problem with contamination. You do not want to be drinking this contaminated water, and you do not want to know what is in it that has lead to the contamination!

Supplementing Your Sheep's Diet with Grain

When the pasture is not enough - Feeding grain to supplement your animal’s diet

 Oats, wheat, barley and sorghum are often used for supplement feeding of sheep when pastures are not adequate to meet the animals' dietary requirements. Sheep will also need roughage in the form of hay, if edible dry grasses are not available in the paddocks. You can also feed your livestock commercially made feed cubes or pellets. Refer to the instructions for quantities to feed your animals.

Sheep requirements for supplementary feeding
When feeding oats:
Weaners- 2.2 kg per week each
Dry adult- 3 kg per week each
Six weeks prior to lambing- 3.8 kg per week each
Lactating ewe- 5.1 kg per week each

When feeding barley, wheat or sorghum:
Weaners- 1.8 kg per week each
Dry Adult- 2.4 kg per week each
Six weeks prior to lambing- 3 kg per week each
Lactating ewes- 4.2 kg per week each

Oats are the preferred grain to feed sheep and cattle as they are less likely to cause lactic acidosis- a process that can kill your stock. Introducing grain (or any new feed) must be done gradually to allow the rumen bacterial colonies to adapt to the changing environment and be able to process the food safely without making excessive lactic acid.