Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
The following sad tale comes from Elaine –

I have just seen the most pitiful ewe. My husband had it tied up outside our workshop when the schoolchildren caught it this morning when they were waiting for their bus. It was severely underweight, dehydrated, hypothermic and extremely weak. The fleece was missing off its back and it was covered in deep frost. It was in an appalling state. I covered it up with a blanket because it was shaking violently. My husband called the sheep farmer down the road so we could identify it. He told us that he had been left a message by the NFU yesterday asking him to look out for this sheep which had been reported as wandering about lost.

The farmer and his wife were disgusted with the state of this poor sheep – identified the owner but as he was a major dealer, wondered if he would even accept the thing back. His remarks were damning. This was not what sheep farming or keeping livestock was about. He apologised to us for the state of this animal although it was not his. This is what gave farming a bad name, he remarked. He got his tractor and took hthe sheep to their shed to see what they could do for it in the mean time. Its outlook didn't look at all promising. I just wished its pitiful existence could be brought to a speedy and peaceful conclusion.

The unnecessary culling of healthy animals during the FMD outbreak was an appalling and tragic waste of life. But other animals still suffer unnecessarily through the neglect, greed and callousness of man. Let's continue to expose these obscenities.

Elaine