Pliers and rubber rings, a tub of aquamarine dye, plastic ID ear tags … Rodney Beresford lays out the tools of his trade on a flat-topped boulder. It’s lambing time, and he is here in the sheepfold to dock tails and castrate the days-old males.
For once the shepherd is not alone, however. For 10 years Rodney has been offering refugees and asylum seekers “a day out to remember”, as part of a Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust project. Today’s helper-guests, from St Augustine’s Centre in Halifax, have spent their morning searching his pasture for new-born lambs, guided by Rodney’s grandchildren, Lucy, eight, and Katie, five. Success? Two sets of twins born naturally – “doing grand”.
Now in borrowed waterproofs and boots, the visitors will have to be more hands on. Rodney and his dog separate the week-old lambs from their mothers and give them to willing helpers to hold until he’s ready. Anxious ewes circle round, bleating.
He begins with a tup, a male lamb. First he needs to dock its tail, which will stop faeces collecting on its fleece. He takes a rubber ring about the size of a polo mint and, using special “elastration” pliers, enlarges the hole so that he can slip it some way up the tail. Once the pliers are removed, the ring snaps back to its original size; this constricts the blood vessels in the animal’s tail, which will eventually drop off.
Same procedure with its testicles. The gelded lambs, destined for slaughter, will go to “finish” on better grass. Only the few males selected for breeding purposes escape castration.
Rodney has a numbered tag for each of his charges, which he carefully clips on to the young Swaledale’s ear. His Nigerian helper daubs its pristine fleece with dye, this smit mark a quick way of denoting ownership. The lambs scoot back to their mothers.
Shepherd and visitors chat away non-stop, though the Dales dialect, descended from Old Norse, can cause difficulties. “What does ‘Eeh by gum!’ mean?” wonders a Sudanese woman.
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