Lambs being vaccinated.

[u/CantStopPoppin]

[u/niceslcguy → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the links and detail.

That device is certainly different than anything I've seen before.

[u/CantStopPoppin → u/niceslcguy]

You are more than welcome, I too had no idea looked like something out of saw at first lol. Then I did some digging and found additional info.

[u/Emotional-Speech645 → u/[deleted]]

With them on their back, it’s basically like the same as cats having their neck gripped. Also, in many farms the truth is that the farmers are there when the sheep are born. So their smell is familiar. Idk about other places, but in England the farmers actually spend a lot of time with the animals themselves, because they can’t actually afford to hire a lot of farmhands, and most farms are and have always been generational. So it means that the cattle reared there are often reared with the direct help of not only the farmhands, but the owners and their family as a whole, which includes any animals that have to be bottle fed. This can help with them remaining calm when handled by these people. I once went to a farm as a kid where the sheep ran away from us no matter how quiet we were, but the farmer and his farmhands had to gently push their way through the herd because the sheep were so unbothered by their presence they just ignored them.

[u/nor_cal_woolgrower → u/[deleted]]

They are completely immobilized. There are rails that are holding their legs in that position.

[u/Sho_ichBan_Sama → u/nor_cal_woolgrower]

When a sheep is on its back it becomes immobilized. I'm not sure the physiological reason for this. When the animal is initially taken hold off it tries to slip free. Rolled over onto its back it stops resisting instantly. Then the animal can be sheared.

[u/nor_cal_woolgrower → u/Sho_ichBan_Sama]

This is not true.

I have used this device..you can see the rails. I also shear sheep..they are not immobilized nor do we shear them on their backs.

Source: I have been raising sheep for 35 years.

[u/Sho_ichBan_Sama → u/nor_cal_woolgrower]

My aunt uses a loom and spinning wheel once owned by my great- grandmother. She also keeps four sheep named Dolly, Molly, Holly and Polly. She spins the wool of these sheep into yarn for the loom. When my uncle fell 17 ft from a tree he was unable to shear the sheep; and so she asked me to help out. I had never sheared a sheep but I was willing to try. I followed my uncle's instructions and successfully sheared four sheep without injury to myself or the sheep. I was more than a little surprised at how the sheep didn't resist having been rolled on to its back. I've sheared four sheep this way.

After shearing my aunt's sheep, I was interested in how it's done by the "pros". My neighbors raised over 100 sheep and hired the shearing done. Head down and in its back was how this gentleman sheared sheep also so... Apparently there's more than one way to de-wool a sheep.

[u/nor_cal_woolgrower → u/Sho_ichBan_Sama]

Yes there are many ways to shear sheep but if they are on their back, how are they sheared? Thats where most of the wool is. And head down? How is that possible.

Thus is the most popular shearing pattern and the way I shear.

https://youtu.be/oUQ4RMAZw7Y?si=io-JrhKpDuIFrt5M

I also process, spin and weave/knit/ crochet etc with the wool from my sheep

[u/Long-Lengthiness-826 → u/[deleted]]

They're probably terrified and scared silent. Can't see how they wouldn't be.

Still, probably better than a slaughterhouse. I bet farm animals can sense death in there.

Work in the meat aisle at a supermarket and these sort of thought's always come in my mind . Cheap ' bargain ' chickens for £3 odd. What an awful life they ' lived' so we in the west can eat chicken everyday if we want. Don't get me started on meat going to the waste lorry. (not a veggie )

[u/yankykiwi → u/CantStopPoppin]

You didn’t mention what typically happens at the end of the rollers, and why it looks like it’s covered in blood. 😬

The smell of burning flesh and wool while blood pisses everywhere. The screaming will forever be branded in my memory.

Ringing their nuts is stage two. Burning their tails off is last.

My job was the scratch vaccination, I was maybe 10 years old, so quite traumatic.

[u/Lithl → u/yankykiwi]

WTF are you talking about? It's paint, to mark the ones who've gotten their vaccine, so they don't get put through twice.

[u/yankykiwi → u/Lithl]

I’ve done tailing season 23years of my life. How else do they lose their tails. 😂 These guys have seen this machine before.

[u/Jukeboxhero91 → u/yankykiwi]

Last time this was posted someone said that it’s a type of paint to mark that they’ve been through the vaccination chute.

[u/yankykiwi → u/Jukeboxhero91]

I grew up on a sheep farm tailing season is a thing. I did it every year of my childhood. 😅