Saturday, December 1, 2007

Rammin' Around This Morning

Whew! what a morning in the barn. When we finished with the poop scooping, husband asked for my help. Now you must realize, we are amateurs and have only had sheep since mid summer, and that I leave sheep business up to him. The help needed was to move the ram from one end of the barn in with the two ewes, leaving Danny, the whether, where he was - and - to move the two lambs who were in with the ewes to stay with Danny - BECAUSE it's breeding time! You would think this would be relatively simple, however, no one had ever had a halter on before.

We caught Aries, the ram, and while Smitty held him I got his halter on. Actually, it wasn't that simple because it was on and off a few times for buckle adjustment while Smitty is bent over holding the guy. He doesn't get on his knees often because they are both artificial. That's Smitty's knees, not Aries. Now it's time to lead him about 150 yards. I pushed, Smitty pulled.

OK, so now we are ready to move the lambs who actually look full grown and probably weigh about 60 pounds. Haltering goes great but they absolutely refuse to be led and we can't get ourselves into the push - pull positions because we are trying to move two. Well, Phoebe slips her halter, so now she's moving great but all over the indoor arena. I could just see Smitty thinking to hell with it, he grabs Maddy who I'm leading, and with considerable effort picks her up and deposits her in the pen with Danny, goes back into the arena, catches and picks up Phoebe and dumps her.

I'm all anxious to go watch the breeding process but it's not really happening. Aries is making these cooing noises and doing a tongue thing in their faces but they are just running off.
Back in Danny's pen, he's terrified of these two little girls and when I left to come in, he was cowering in the corner.

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