Mummy (and Bubby) -

Mummy’s story is truly amazing as is this adorably determined little Southdown cross ewe.  Hers is a good news rescue; well it wasn’t so much a rescue as an “open the gate” story.  Up until Mummy and Bubby all the animal residents of Edgar’s Mission were rescued, they have either been brought to us or someone has had to go and rescue them, but not Mummy.

Around 10.5 million sheep and 17 million lambs are killed each year in Australia, Mummy and her baby were meant to be in this number but no one told Mummy this (or did they?).  One day as we were going about our business here at the sanctuary we saw a ewe and her lamb waiting just outside the front gate.  Ever so careful were our movements as we made our way to the gate to do the friendly country folk thing of letting your visitor in.  And almost audible was Mummy’s plea as she looked us directly in the eye as if to say “please do you have any room at the inn for me and my child?” and so Mummy with her bub dutifully trotting beside her had found their nirvana, and then they were off!  Positively feral was Mummy once inside the gate, she wanted nothing to do with us.  By some divine intervention and much puffing and panting on our behalf we managed to get Mummy and Bubby into one of the quarantine yards.  Here she was to stay for a couple of weeks in which she decided that we really were the good guys after all, that wheatbix make a great treat and that walking up to humans looking them in the eye and baaing will elicit food.

Mummy’s arrival at Edgar’s Mission was to prove extremely fortuitous for her and her baby.  We tracked her previous owner down by the tag in her ear, a deal was struck, and then Mummy was officially “ours”.  No longer would she be a statistic to simply be known by her ear tag as here at Edgar’s Mission she can freely express her unique individuality as all sheep should.  The farmer’s passing quip that Mummy and her baby would have gone to slaughter the following week still makes us shudder at the thought of what might have been!