The Great Sheep Escape

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On Sunday, our sheep FINALLY began to lamb!  As of yesterday, we had three beautiful Jacob lambs and one Rambouillet lamb.  So far, pretty good, especially on pasture.  On Monday, Genny, one of our Interns, and I, Margaret, went out to fence fresh grass for all of our lovely ruminants.

If they could have only waited five more minutes for us to finish the last of the new fence, we’d have needed to earn our exercise elsewhere this week.  But no!  They had decided that they were apparently hungry enough that they had to simply try to reach fresh grass by sticking a head between a post for the electric fence and a post for the woven wire fence which of course popped the electric connector off the hotwire above the woven wire fence to create a lovely new gate.

Out they ALL go.  Well, except for the three Jacob mamas.  They decided to stay and let their babies hunker down instead of go adventuring.

The gate the sheep had made was about 15 feet away from where the new fence was going to be.  They decided to head up into the neighbor's field and then around the end of our woven wire fencing back onto our ground to gobble up as much of our winter wheat cover crop as possible.  The alpacas, while munching, must be charged with the duty of scoping out the new fence when they move.  The sheep generally follow the alpacas because apparently alpacas know where they're going, right? (hahaha!)

Off they go, gobbling as fast as possible and walking up towards the road and away from the new area into which they were SUPPOSED to go.  Genny and I drop what we're doing and race to try and get around the sheep and attempt to bring them back.  Whether they go back into the old area or the new we don't care as long as they are in some area with a fence.  We manage to get them back to the corner where they escaped, albeit on the other side of the woven wire fence and just as the sheep are thinking about heading into a fenced area, the Alpacas decide that can't be right and take everyone off in the other direction through our neighbor's field of peas.

Genny is on that end of the sheep so I send her to attempt to get in front of them.  The alpacas have done this game before and decide to keep up the pace and keep going.

They traveled all the way down the field, nearly to our distant ponds before a turn in the hills caused the alpacas (and entourage) to pause and think long enough for Genny to catch up with them and attempt to send them back the way they came.

Instead of going into their newly prepared fence, for which I was attempting to create an entrance gate, they took off back up the pea field back towards our winter wheat.  When they got there, the Alpacas decided that wasn't right so they kept going and took everyone up to the road and towards the veggies and our landlord's house.  Of course, Genny and I are now BOTH behind everyone.  without a speedy dog, there was absolutely zero turning them around at this point.  

Our only saving grace was the fact that Ronn, our other intern, Dave, and our employee, Dan, were down in that field transplanting green onions.  Dan happened to look up and see sheep.  Ronn turned around expecting to see a few renegade creatures and instead, they saw the ENTIRE FLOCK.  Thank goodness they were there because they were able to help us get them turned around and walking down the access road and back towards their original enclosure.

Now that they'd managed to gobble enough to sate their crazy appetites and were back to simply starving (likely from all that running now...) they were content to walk in a group down the access road and back into their fenced area.  Once they were in, it took us about 5 minutes to finish setting the new fence.  Dan and Dave herded the sheep from their old area into their new and as soon as they saw the fresh new grass, they were happy once again.

And we decided that it was lunch time.

Lambs can be so.... challenging.

It's a good thing that they're edible.

Now maybe that's mean.  We definately do not do enough handling of our sheep, especially the lambs for them to learn that people really are okay.  The adults have lost their edginess around us and the yearling mamas have begun to lose their edge too, although they are still at the back of the pack and a few tend to get left behind with the lambs sometimes.  Jacob sheep are known for their flightiness and difficulty in handling.  I don't knwo if it's just us or our particular group but they don't seem much flightier than any other group of sheep I've worked with.  Smarter, certainly but not any flightier, really.

Tomorrow morning, we were going to move our ewes and lambs into the next pasture over from where they were the past week.  There were several things that weren't quite right. 

1.  Somehow, last week while in the previous pasture that was next to the rams, one ewe and her two lambs (both males) got themselves into the ram pasture and couldn't get themselves back.  I'll have to be watching that one in mid-december for lambs.  Our rams have never been fertile this time of year before, too hot, but it's been much cooler lately... hmm. 

2. Goats weren't really supposed to be mixed with the ewes yet, but there they were.  Stubborn goats!

3. a couple of lambs had been making adventures somehow into another pasture in the old orchard. 

This time, when I went to check on sheep after market before going home for the evening, the lamb escapees couldn't figure out how to get back into the correct pasture with mum.  I'd have to convince them through a gate, relatively easy.  There were also some lambs already in the next pasture.  Well, I guess it'll be tonight while I've got light rather than tomorrow when I should be building the next fence for the next pasture.  While I'm at it, I might as well get the ewe out of the rams.  Because she has to males for lambs, I don't care if they stay or come with.  They stayed, this particular ewe is particularly un-flighty and loves people because people always bring grain.  I got her through the fence with little problem.  Getting her away from her lambs (still nursing some even though they are 5 1/2 months old!) was more challenging but grain solved the issue, the first time.  Second problem was getting her into the ewe group.

For some reason, in hoping that ALL the ewes and lambs would follow me and my grain bucket, I left the gate open enough to admit Sweetpea, my errant ewe, but most of the lambs and the alpacas and the goats decided the last pasture would be better.  The adult ewes went with me and I got them into the correct pasture.

Next step was retrieving everyone else.  Not too challenging except that SweetPea wanted to go back to her lambs, and the lambs and yearlings were confused because they could see their mothers on the other side of the fence of the old pasture.  I had to go all the way back across the pasture and start over and herd everyone back to the gate to their most recent pasture.  convincing the alpacas has so far been the most difficult but thye actually led the lambs through.  The goats had a mind of their own so I let them stay behind.  The alpacas impressed me by leading the lambs around and through a gate to get to the opening in the fence for the next pasture.  The lambs piled past them once they realized which pasture they were in since they'd been there before.  The poor alpacas nearly fell into the creekbed but quickly figured it out.

All I had left was the three individual goats.  Once I got them headed in the right direction and through the gate, all I had left to do was tie up the gate again and amost every difficulty had been fixed, about an hour after I began.  All I'll have to fix later is getting the two lambs out of the ram group but we'll be into breeding season before the first ones go to slaughter and I'll have to sort the rams then. 

I do love my sheep.