What a story IMR, what a lucky little cow and mama to be sure, I also dealt with livestock when very young, well not that young, Jr. High or ninth grade, which seems a lifetime ago..
When I was in ninth grade, I was one of only two girls in the whole school who were members of the Agricultural Science Class, and members became FFA, members, future Farmers of America. ( very funny now that I am a Vegetarian) Believe me, if you have ever been to a Slaughterhouse, or saw what goes on there, you would probably think completely different than you do about Meat and where it comes from...
Anyway, that is too dark of a subject and very sad for me and I don't want to ever go there again. Back to my story....One of the things we had to do as Agricultural Science Class members was to dock lambs tails, and castrate pigs, baby pigs.These were little baby pigs as cute as could be, but believe you me, if you have never heard a baby pig squeal before, you don't want to. This was about 10;30 in the morning and the class was right behind the football field and across from the Cafeteria as well. It was a sunny day and a local farmer had driven in with a truckload of about 12 little pigs, very young, but no longer sucking from their mothers I believe. They were so cute but the minute you went to pick one up, all Hell broke loose with the little pink things squealing for all they were worth, ( I think they knew what was about to happen to them....
I wont' go into a lot of details for the squeamish and anyone not familiar with how animals are actually castrated, but lets just say, you would;t want to do this ever again. it is all over very quickly for the little porkers with a quick cut here and there and a spray from a can of purple disinfectant spray that helps keep flies off the wound and from being infected. The castrating was bad,but nothing was as bad as docking lambs tails.....
The smell of burning flesh, ( you sear the wound where the tail has been cut off, to help protect against infection and to mostly stop bleeding.) The only funny part of this whole madcap soap opera, was the fact it was Almost Lunch time and when the whole P.E class and probably the rest of the school, heard the screaming of a dozen or so baby piglets and the bleating of lambs, add the sickening smell of burnt lambs tails, and everyone thought there was a Slaughter going on behind the Agricultural Science Building.
This terrible screaming lasted for 15-20 minutes. Another hour and class was over, by the time it was lunch, you would think it was over.Not so. You should have seen the look of students faces in the cafeteria that day, when lo and behold, what do you think was the main entree? Pork Chops smothered in gravy.... I don't think I ever saw so many strange faces as I did that day, and several students actually looked a little green around the gills.
I think the entire school was sure the Agricultural Science Class was responsible for delivering the Main Course to the Cafeteria that day, and also that there was something very terrible and inhumane going on near the football field, I think there were a lot of hungry students that skipped lunch that day, and I was one of them, Luckily, we did not have to deal with baby pigs or lambs any more, Our next assignment, was learning how to use a' Cattle prod", but this was on big hefty Black Angus Steers, not little defenseless lambs and piglets.
I ended up quitting that class and moving to San Francisco shortly after that, but not before I earned a B in that class, being one of only two girl sin a all male class, but it was fun neverthe less and a year I will never forget!
RedwoodsMama
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Topic: weirdest thing that happened to you... (Read 4803 times)