Once upon a time, farmers were not just into animal husbandry, they relied on them to actually get that job done.
Stock horses, the magnificent heavy horse and as always, the dog.
That was about the lot.
But these days some cockies I know are running a bloody circus.
They have alpacas to protect the sheep. Or even Maremmas.
Or some misshapen creature that is just as likely to hawk a gob full of spit as look at you seems a poor replacement for the stately old draught horse.
At least a Maremma is a dog. Mind you, they get so protective of the sheep or chooks or whatever you bond them to, they are just as likely to rip your leg off if you get too close.
Another bloke I know thought there were too many alpaca around — so he got a llama.
And the guy down the road opted for donkeys. No need to comment, is there?
Then there are those show ponies who always have to be a little different. You know the type!
So they go and pay a small fortune for something such as an Akbash or Anatolian. Then there are the Great Pyrenees and Komondor, or (so help me God this is true) the Kuvasz and the Sharplaninatz.
“Get out of here, Col,” I can hear you mocking. But bugger me if I don't know people with some of these critters.
A Sharplaninatz (also known as a Sarplaninac) comes from the Balkans.
And some of these mutts can set you back a small fortune — we are talking four figures here.
Heaven help us. I reckon the most I ever paid for a kelpie I didn't breed was a leg of lamb off one of the ration sheep.
And for all the showboating that comes with owning one of these curiosities, it turns out the best research by the Department of Primary Industries in NSW proves the llama and alpaca and yes, even the humble donkey, are much quicker to learn the job — and are usually much better at it.
And you can shear a valuable fleece off an alpaca, get some coarse wool from a llama and a kick in the head from the donkey.
I have a mate with a free-range chook and egg business on the side and for him the final straw was sitting on the back porch with his missus and watching a fox trot across their yard with one of their chooks in its gob.
The cheeky bloody thing wasn’t even in a hurry and stopped to look at my mate before moving on.
So he got some of those Maremma things and while he admits it has cut his chook losses to almost zero, the barking of his four dogs might still be the death of him.
So there you have it.
Even on the farm there is snob value in having the fanciest, or rarest, animal — even if it’s only to save a few chooks from Brer Fox.
Who’d have thought it?
I drive past some of these abominations from time to time and my working dogs in the back of the ute (real working dogs) are too busy laughing to bother barking.
Dogs are funny old things.
