Ah.....yes! Such is the ignorance of the hill-billy higglers.

Information on flank spaying in Australia can be accessed by googling "Cattle Council of Australia flank spaying". One will find other URLS similtaneously such as submissions to the Senate Committee and to the Qld parliament on this abominable practice.

Curiously, our hissing hill-billy , Perseus, a breeder of export cattle prefers to remain in Disney Land.

And so does the pretentious Yabby, a live sheep exporter, who claims that all who disagree with his views are city slickers, sipping lattes.

Sorry to disappoint Yabby - but hello, anyone home? I live in sheep country with the nearest sheep station just 15 kilometres from my front door. Oh yes and I've witnessed truck loads of sheep crammed in like sardines in 42 degree heat whilst the truck driver calls in home for some 2 hour respite, of whatever takes his fancy, prior to transporting these animals hundreds of kilometres away to their fate.

I've even had a ride in a sheep farmer's private plane where he continued to whinge about the cost of 2 children in elite, secondary schools in the city and 2 at university. That was after he tried to impress visitors to his property by slitting a sheep's throat and in front of my young children.

And before the abusive, hissing hill-billy returns with his flare for histrionics, a word of advice:

Perseus, take your hand off it - everybody knows you're incapable of doing two things at once!

Country gal, I did read your unsolicited and totally irrelevant comment about meat (stressed or otherwise), and treated it as just that. My point was that, irrespective of how efficient you think it is, it remains against the law to use dogs to hunt other animals, including "noxious" ones. Dogs are not, in my expertience, really into a "clean kill" either - more your tearing apart. A point upon which you may like to reflect is that most of these so-called "noxious' or "pest" animals exist in this country as a result of human intervention. ignorance, neglect or negligence. It is therefore incumbent upon humans, if there must be control measures, to use humane and responsible ones (not including poisons, viruses and dogs).
Dickie, thanks for the information, and I agree with you totally. It is easy to see why the live exporters are so defensive, given the overwhelming weight of evidence of the true obscenity of how they make their living. Certainly nothing to be proud of, is there?
As for the "nutters" at PETA - does anyone seriously believe that there would have been the slightest thought given to finding an alternative to mulesing (and clearly it CAN be found - in fact they already exist, and I do not drink latte either) had PETA not thrown the practice under the world spotlight? The difference in the legal protection accorded to "companion" animals compared to farmed animals is quite alarming - why is it okay to flank spay a heifer but not a cat or dog, and why can this person Dickie describes cut the throat of a sheep without fear of legal sanction, when (I assume) this is not how he disposes of his childrens' pets? That, and the self-serving comments by the live exporters, who would really be smarter to stay out of this debate really since what they do IS indefensible, brings us back to the start of the thread.
Nicky

Hey you should look at The Australian Peoples Party Animal Welfare Policy

Now wont this get up the nose of the big ones and those they are keeping in this practice.

www.tapp.org.au

and while you are there have a look at the news

Sheesh, I will have to have a word to my two dogs! They spend half
their days, doing natural doggie things like chasing rabbits about
the place. I'll have to tell them that those crazy city slicker
veggies think its evil :)

Dickie and Nicky, nope you girls don't sound like latte types,
more like chamomile types.

Sorry to disappoint you Dickie, but no real live exporter here.
I don't even sell my animals to the trade, as it happens.
I however live in a community where most people do and I understand
the importance of the trade and alot about it. It would be a welcome
breath of fresh air if the veggie brigade actually had some
qualified people to put their case, not just a bunch of dreamers.

Nicky, you still don't get it. Thousands of sheep in Australia
have their throats slit every week, in rural Australia. Hobby
farmer magazines even describe to people how to go about it.
But of course the AA video cameras are so busy rushing around the
Middle East, trying to find somebody slitting a sheeps throat, that
they don't even seem to know what is going on in their own country.

Ah Dickie, so there we have it. Your experience about farming is
that you've actually flown in a plane with a real life pastoralist.
Wow!

Yabby

Your attempts at defending the live export trade by condemning those who speak out against it as 'dreamers' is interesting. However, it would be wise of you to bear in mind that, as far as I am aware, very, very few (if any) of the farmers who export their animals have ever accompanied those animals to the point of sale and to the point of slaughter. The person who filmed Australian sheep being bound, on-sold, transported and slaughtered did accompany those sheep, filming the fate afforded to them by those who sold them to this trade - a fate which was for more than 30 years hidden by the an industry reliant on public ignorance for survival.

Perhaps those who witness and film the reality of this trade are not the dreamers. Perhaps those who close their eyes, ears and consciences are the real dreamers; at best unaware, at worst indifferent to the fate that awaits the animals they load onto a truck and never see again.

LL, I have been to the Middle East. I would be
far more concerned with the welfare of the donkeys there, then Australian live sheep.

However I remind you that the "fertile crescent" is in the ME.
They have been breeding and consuming livestock for thousands of
years. For you to assume that they will suddenly change their
ways, if Australia bans the live trade, is absolute dreaming.

Yes, things could be done in the ME to assist animal welfare,
but shooting yourself in the proverbial foot is not one of them.

You would have to concede that AA cannot be seen as an "unbiased"
or "objective" source of information, given that they arn't really
keen on the rest of us farming and eating meat. So I prefer
less fanatical sources for my information. Cameron Morse
did a trip to the ME on one of the boats.

http://www.wellardgroup.com.au/media_centre/media_releases.phtml

I am sure that the many dreamers on here mean well, but few know
much about livestock and don't seem to understand the difference
between livestock and pets. In the real world I've found an easy
solution to this. Let them visit a farm, strap a drench pack
to their backs and let them drench a few hundred muscley meat lambs.

People tend to learn through pain and after
a few hours of being battered and bruised,
they tend to concede that they don't know much about sheep or
their behaviour, as they have just found out the hard way.
At that point we can start to discuss sheep psychology and the
difference between pets and farm livestock.

To cut it short, most farm animals in Australia, actually have
far better and more natural lives then city animals.
No being locked in houses or flats all day. No being dragged
down roads by a chain. No being dressed up in weird clothes
either. At least my dogs get to be natural, like chase
rabbits. I doubt that they would swop their lives with
pets owned by various neurotic city slickers, who would
even want to ban their favourite pastimes!