Not it's real name, obviously.....
On arrival at Exeter one morning we were handed a job sheet for a farm not too far from home for me. The manager handed it over with a bit of a worried look on her face.
"It's a big one, I'm afraid. Lots of sheep, and they're right in the middle of lambing."
"No problem. We'll get straight up there."
"I've sent a couple of extra contract slaughtermen to help, and the IP vet is happy to help" she said.
I went to the stores and picked up the necessary.
On arrival on the farm we found a TV crew waiting for us. They watched us wash down and filmed our entry onto the farm. As we walked into the yard a worried looking young vet came dashing up.
"Who the hell are you lot" he asked aggressively.
"We are the slaughter team" I said, and introduced him to everyone.
After a short 'discussion' about the merits of blue suits, the IP vet announced that he would 'help' with slaughter, and would be monitoring our work throughout the day.
I wasn't expecting that.
The way the new system worked was that when a slaughter team arrived on a holding, they took charge of everything. In theory, the slaughter vet was in charge, but in practice, with our team it was me. Once slaughter was complete, the slaughter vet handed control back over to the IP vet and we all buggered off to the next job.
This young vet was obviously deluded.
I explained to him that he was welcome to help with the slaughter, but that he was not to 'monitor' our work. It was bad enough that the team had to work with the pressure of a TV crew nearby without some newly qualified vet breathing down our necks.
He stomped off, and I suspect phoned the office to check the facts.
There was a large shed, full of ewes and lambs, and on entry we found the two extra slaughtermen waiting for us. Introductions were done quickly, and the drovers got to work.
The two extra slaughtermen had already penned up some sheep, and I let them get started on their own.
Ewes and lambs were separated into smaller groups using hurdles, and Tony and I started work. We worked with one drover each, and the first job was to kill the lambs.
The drovers would pick up each lamb in turn and hold it with its head over the top of the hurdle. We would then shoot it, and it would be dropped over the side outside the pen. While re-loading, we would check each lamb to make sure it was dead. The whole thing was quite quick, but very, very noisy. If you stopped to think about what you were doing then you'd probably have to cry.
Once all the lambs from the pens were killed, the drover would get the next pen ready while Tony and I killed the ewes. You didn't need much help to kill a pen full of ewes, you just walk amongst them and shoot them. It becomes a robotic action; stand alongside your sheep, aim the gun (highest point of the head to the 'crook' of the neck), wait for the sheep to be standing still and shoot it. They'd drop with a thump, and again, as you reloaded, you would be looking at the sheep to make sure it was dead.
Nigel returned from somewhere (checking paperwork or something) and as he had nothing else to do offered to 'drove' for me. I sent my drover to work with the two contract slaughtermen, as they seemed to be making little progress.
We plodded on, and worked our way from pen to pen. The noise was terrible, but that kind of drove you on really. Once all the lambs from a pen had been killed you just wanted to get the ewes killed to shut them up.
I will repeat what I said in an earlier post now. I worked with Tony throughout foot and mouth, and in all that time I never witnessed any animal needing a second shot from him. We were good at what we did, and took pride in it.
An hour or so later my original drover walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.
"You've got to do something about this guy; he's not doing it right."
I suggested to Nigel that he should go and check on the farmer (that was code for 'have a cup of tea and some cake), as he was looking knackered already.
I checked on Tony, "Everything OK?" he looked at me and then cocked his head towards one of the other slaughtermen. Looking back at me he shook his head in a disapproving way.
I walked over and watched the man at work. He was a tall, well built man, and didn't appear to have a hair on his head. As I watched, I was struck immediately by the rough way he was handling the sheep.
I leant over the pen, and said in a firm voice:
"Steady....."
He looked at me straight in the eyes:
"WHAT?"
"I said, STEADY. Either do the job properly, or f**k off the farm now."
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" he bellowed.
By this time, my two drovers and Tony had joined me in a little huddle. I think they wanted to let him know that we were a team.
"I'm nobody in the big wide world" I said. "But I am somebody here. I'm going to say this once, and I won't be repeating myself. You either do the job properly, or you go. And when you've gone, I'll make it my personal mission to make sure that you never work for the ministry again. Understand?"
He nodded and then scowled.
"Right, I said. I think we'll all have a cup of tea and calm down before we do any more."
We sat down, and rolled cigarettes and swigged from coke bottles. The two other slaughtermen both went outside.
"He's not much better," Tony said, nodding at the quieter slaughterman as he left.
"What do you mean?" I asked
"When the lads were setting things up he asked me where you shoot a sheep."
"WHAT? You mean he really didn't know?"
"He told me that he hasn't done any slaughtering for thirty years, and has never used a captive bolt on sheep before."
"For f**ks sake. Why the hell have they sent them here. Right. This is what we are going to do. Tony, you work with 'Kojac', and I'll work with matey that doesn't know what he's doing. Any nonsense off him then let me know."
"Right boss" the lads said, grinning.
I needed a breath of air, so went to the big barn door and peeked out. From the safety of the barn, I could see the film crew and warned everyone to be on their guard. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a pen full of lambs in the yard.
I walked over and in the pen was the IP vet, holding a lamb up by it's front legs as he injected it. He had his back to me, so he jumped a bit when I spoke.
"What are you doing?" I asked quietly.
He turned around and I saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.
"I'm doing what the bloody slaughter vet should be doing!" he said. "Where the bloody hell is Nigel?"
"He's with the farmer. Why don't you leave that and come and have a drink."
He looked down at a pile of lifeless lambs next to the pen.
"There isn't time. We have to get all of these killed today. "
For a second time he asked,
"Where is Nigel really. He should be here helping me".
Right on cue, Nigel came wandering around the corner. Before I had chance to say anything, the IP vet let rip;
"WHERE THE BLOODY HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?"
Nigel, looking surprised at being asked answered,
"I've been having a cup of tea with the farmer and his wife. They've got some very nice cake in there; you should try it."
"CAKE?" the vet shouted.
I asked Nigel to check on the lads, and he left me alone with the IP vet.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and felt his whole body convulse as he fought off his tears.
"I think you should stop doing that now. Why don't you come inside with us, I could do with a bit of help."
Like a broken man he followed me into the shed.
I should explain here what the vet was doing outside.
The 'book' said that lambs that were less than a certain age (two weeks, I think) should not be shot, as their head and brain is not fully developed. The 'book' way to kill them was to inject them with euthatal or whatever euthanasia drug was in use, straight into the heart.
I've always been of the opinion that having a needle put into the heart must cause pain. Nigel agreed, so we always shot the lambs regardless of the 'book'. Shooting them did kill them outright, but they bled alot more than adults, and also kicked around a lot more. The result was that it was quick, humane, but messy and not pretty to watch.
Our IP vet had read the 'book' and thought he was doing the right thing. My opinion then, as it is now, was that what he was doing was slow, caused more distress to the lambs, and was not necessary.
I went back in and got on with the work with the others.
Mid afternoon came, and we stopped again. There had been no more arguments, and the two vets had gone off together to talk to the farmer. 'Kojac' made an announcement:
"If you'll sign off my sheet I'll be off."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I've done my quota for the day. I'm off."
"Well you'll have to wait for Nigel to come back. He signs off the sheets."
On his return, Nigel spoke with the slaughterman who wanted to go.
"He wants me to sign to say he's killed 500" he said.
"Is that OK?"
"No it f**king isn't Nige. Tell him he can have 250 and no more."
Another explanation is required here.
Contract slaughtermen got paid on 'headage'. The pay was £1 per sheep or goat, and £2.50 per cattle.
A heated debate took place on the other side of the shed. I anxiously watched as Tony wandered over and gave Kojac the benefit of his opinion. I don't know what he said to him, but Kojac went away quietly.
We got back to work. The other slaughterman was still working, and doing OK. He was starting to look tired though.
We finally finished the shed off, and all breathed a sigh of relief that we'd finished. It was 8pm.
The IP vet walked in with the farmer, announced that there were another 1000 sheep to be killed.
"Another thousand?" I said.
"Right. We'd better make some space for them. "
We moved some dead sheep, and knocked up some more pens with the hurdles we had. The sheep arrived.
By this time, we'd been working for about 14 hours, and everyone, without exception was tired. There were still murmurings in the team about Kojac, and the fact that he'd gone early didn't help. To his credit, the other contract slaughterman had stayed and worked well once he'd got into the swing of things.
We carried on, and despite the fact that we'd all had enough, we still functioned as a team. By now, I had rejoined Tony in the pens, working alongside the old boy. Mac whispered to me;
"You can't let him go on much longer. You are killing eight sheep to his one. He's had it."
Sure enough, when I looked over, the old boy looked as though he would keel over at any minute. I was worried about his welfare, and the sheep.
"Take a break" I told him.
"What about....."
"Don't worry about that; we'll finish off here. Go and get the disinfectant ready and have a drink."
He didn't argue. I don't think he could.
Tony and I finished off, and took one last look at the scene of devastation in the shed. There were 4300 dead sheep lying in the shed, and for the first time that day, it was silent.
I recently looked at the BBC website at the list of farms killed. Even now, the list shows that site as only being 1600 sheep - which I can only presume was the quota allocation for that farm. We killed more than double that number that day.
In an act of generosity for that old slaughterman, Tony shared the number of sheep excluding the 'kojac quota' straight down the middle.
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