TWICE-BORN LAMB

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 740, 18 September 1953, Page 16

TWICE-BORN LAMB

by

SUNDOWNER

AUGUST 24

\77HEN I went round my sheep this afternoon I took my rifle with me, and *ifles make trespassers of most of m. I saw a black rabbit watching me at a range of perhaps 200 yess, and to get within shooting distance I crossed the boundary fence and crept round a neighbour’s hill. Then 1 forgot the rabbit. I came on a ewe in

a little hollow, bleating as ewes bleat when they no longer

expect an answer, and eating as they eat when they have gone several hours hungry. She was moving in a circle round a rush, and as I stopped and watched her I remembered GuthrieSmith’s "placer" lamb, and wondered if the process was ever reversed; if there could be "placer" ewes. who feed in circles round their dead lambs and never again join the rest of the flock. But when I went to find the lamb there was nothing — neither a stillborn’ one, which I expected, nor the remains of something older and more firmly rooted in its mother’s emotions. I was beginning to think that the lamb had perhaps not been born, and that the ewe was

suffering the temporary lunacy of a mether-about-to-be.

4ihen a taint sound came from almost under my feet, and I realised that the lamb had slipped into an under-runner 15 or 20 feet higher up, and had worked downhil] to the point where I was standing, I discovered, in fact, that there was a small hole near my feet, a vertical chimney about two feet deep, not big enough to let a lamb in, but big enough when I had pulled a little earth away to let me drag a lamb out. It was the happiest moment of the day when I succeeded after a struggle -in reaching an ear, then a jaw, and at last in giving a bedraggled but still vigorous lamb its second birth in 48° hours. /, = te &

AUGUST 26

So THINK it was Barrie who said about some celebrity (perhaps Lord Rosebery) that the first time he saw him he threw a clod at him. I threw a clod some years ago that I did not know to be a clod at a good and wise man

whom I did not know to be my target, I hit. him in full view of

his associates and friends, and the time has not come yet to explain and apologise. But I dreamt last night that 1

went to his house, and before I could even say why I had come he made it clear that I need not have come. He had known everything from the start, had = understood, and harboured’ no resentment. I awoke feeling very uncomfortable. Now, an hour or two later, I’ am still trying to get that dream stuff out of my system. I have not been’ understood or forgiven, and if I had been I would still be unhappy. I threw the clod because I was too dull at thé moment to see what I was doing. In other words, my _ innocence was stupidity, and I find it less painful to be suspected of malice than to be unmasked ays a fool. Nor do I want to’ be such stuff as dreams are made on, morally Not yet. I have been converted too often. awake and asleep; filled with a melting benevolence, and then left shivering in the cold If T have to go to sleep to (continued on ‘next page)

(continued from previous page) be saintly,.1 don’t. ent, to, be saintly. In short, I on "g0oner put up with myself" than" de¢eive As for dreams, the next. stage, if we worry about fy to wofry about the moon and the %, to see meaning in the lines of our hands, or sooner or later in thé creases in our trousers, . oe x *

AUGUST 28

\VJHEN I was looking through my ewes some days ago I found the skin and skeleton of a new-born lamb blocking the mouth of a rabbit burrow, At that time I had no lambs of my own, and to get where they were these remains had been moved a couple of

chains downhili and pulled. through a small hole in a _ net-

ting fence. The situation suggested ferrets rather than cats, so I set a trap next day and laid it uncovered over the mess. For 48 hours nothing happened. Then I caught a cream coloured buck ferret, and twelve hours later a black-tipped doe. Though ferrets are seldom injured by traps, however strong the spring is, I remembered... Jim’s chickens and knocked both animals on the head. But I was a clumsy executioner, The buck is still where I threw him; the doe has disappeared, If I were to re-set the trap she would probably get caught a second time, and I would then have to kill her a second time. So I am giving her a week to migrate. Meanwhile I am wondering why ferrets are the easiest of all small animals to stun and the most difficult to kill. A smart tap on the end of the nose will

knock them unconscious, everi if the instrument. uséd is a light switch -TI have been told of a pet ferret that was knocked out with a straw; but the neck must be broken or the skull crushed to put them out permanently. Their necks are a mass of muscle and difficult tu break, their skulls small, rounded, and deep-sunk; but if a tap on the end of the nose so easily stupefies them, how do they escape injury scrambling through thickets and over rocks? a a P

AUGUST 31

‘THis year, as it was last year, my first lamb was a dead sheep. My second was a live lamb that is a runt. Instead of being the last to interest the rams his mother must have been the

first, though she was the poorest member of the flock when she arrived and

never improved. I have watched. them -al] closely for biologi-

cal reasons-because they are Otago ewes born in October, of mothers that were themselves born in Oetober for several generations, because they were mated every year in May, and this fifth year for the first time were turned out with the rams in .March, The result has been an advance of a month to six weeks in their lambing, but in no case of two months. I allow for a change of country and feed, but it has not been pronounced enough to be decisive. By the calender the position to date is this. The first lamb arrived 157 days

after the ewes joined the rams; one pair of twins came in 160 days; a: third single lamb in 164 days. The indications. are that lambs will not.come faster than that for another week, so that, the flock as a whole took about a fortnight to get ready. For the first twelve days there were two rams with 77 ewes (both Southdowns); then, as one ram was old, I edded a Ryeland ram lamb. It would appear that average sheep under average conditions can be advanced or te tarded in their. breeding cycle within stightly flexible limits, but that the limits exist, and cannot be stretched indefinitely. Sheep that breed twice a year are abnormal in seca and in their husbandry. (To be continued)