What to do with Charlie?

Press, 18 September 1976, Page 1

What to do with Charlie?

By

LANCE EARLY

The fact that farmers breed, raise, and fatten sheep and cattle merely to send them off to slaughter must leave many people thinking that fanners are essentially a hard-hearted, insensitive lot. But such is not the case. Citv people who obtain pets lavish them with the best that can be provided, and bestow on them a status often verging on the ridiculous. Surprisingly, farmers and their families show the same sort of feelings — but only to some of their animals.

Lambs are the first livestock to spring to mind. There is no doubt that the care of a pet does something for the personality and development of a child. Pet lambs, because they do not come within the category of big eaters, often survive the early fate

of their fellows. The ewe lamb, for instance, is put back into the flock, and in due course becomes a part of the farm’s sub-stratum — a generator of income. But what happens when the farmer, or his family, make pets of the larger animals? Unlike city people who send pets to the vet for painless destruction, a farmer has to dispatch the larger farm pet at the zenith of its life. We let ourselves in for this situation two years ago when we bought a long-homed heifer at the market with a healthy bull calf at foot, subsequently named Geoffrey. Geoffrey, from the outset, had a personality of his own. He was a non-con-formist in every respect. He had an athletic knack of getting down on his knees to try to wriggle under the bottom wire of the fence.

In a show of strength, when separated from his mother one day, he burst right through a netting fence. “We’ll teach you,’’ we muttered. We marched him down to the stockyard, and deprived him of his

manhood (or bullhood). Geoffrey, however, remained very much his own boss. But in spite of his waywardness, he had certain attributes — he was growing and fattening fast, his coat shone like silk, and had there been such a thing as weight-gain stakes, he would have acquitted himself with distinction.

Geoffrey was devoid of what the specialists call' pedigree. On appearance, he was by an Angus bull from a Hereford-Friesian cow; and although in colour he resembled a patchwork quilt, he was a fine animal. We left him on the cow ,for 15 months. At 22 months, he had reached the bullock stage. It was time to do something about him. But this was when we leamt we should never have named him.

We felt dreadfully mercenary when we took Geoffrey to the abattoir one fine Sunday morning. We shoved him through the gate, and did not look back. Three days later, a man at the abattoir told us cheerily: “Your steer went 5651 b, Mr Early.” “Thank you,” we replied, adding under our breath: “Poor old Geoffrey.” As fate would have it, another beast has taken his place up at the run. We were at the market during the autumn when a fine line of steer calves arrived from Okuku. But

there was one in the top pen which did not match the rest. He was bred slightly differently. Instead of being jet black with a white head, he showed the white patches of the Friesian, and so he was paraded down to the back pens to be sold with the odds and ends.

The vendor, a good friend of ours, had already named him. Charlie, he said, was a noble animal. “He will come up to you in the paddock,” he said. Like Geoffrey, Charlie is apparently by an Angus bull from a Hereford-Frie-sian cow, but he does not carry as much patchwork. During a convivial lunch, we told the vendor we would make sure Charlie fetched a good price. We asked a man from the Refrigerating Company to bid for us, and at $61.50 Charlie became ours. ■

We still call him Charlie. He has settled in and become as quiet as a Clydesdale. But the day will come when we must decide his future — the market or the works. Front the outset, we should simply have treated Charlie as all other nameless animals with familiar faces — fed well and sold without second thought. Of course, we could advertise Charlie. Would anyone like a pet? Friendly; eats up large.