Weekend chores are supposed to be low stress but the animals decided to play jail break on Saturday. The day began with moving the sheep. We have this electrified net that is set up in a pasture and a second one that's set up for them to move into in the morning. We normally lift up the panels that are close to each other and they scoot through to the fresh grass. We don't really know what went wrong, but a number started getting tangled in it that morning. It ended up, after much sheep herding with the ram and a lamb on the outside of the fence.
Sheep when separated from their flock go a bit crazy and try to get back with them. Not so easy for us, since they were only a few feet away eating yummy grass and didn't realize they weren't with the rest of the sheep. As I wrote a few days ago, there are a few friendly sheep like number 60. Then there are sheep that want nothing to do with up. Emma and I spent 10 minutes walking after the ram and lamb as they walked away from us. Very frustrating.
It ended up with Emma running back to the house to get grain and some reinforcements. While lured towards the grain, Emma and Sophia tackled the lamb and wrestled him to the ground. We dragged him, one each on his front legs, towards the fence and shooed him in.
The ram was much tougher since we didn't feel comfortable tackling him and not getting hurt. He also has one thing on his mind and it's not food so he was not all that interested in our grain bucket. Needless to say, after much stress, coersion and herding, we got him back with his ladies.
The rest of the weekend was better. The cows had escaped a number of times the past week and we convinced them to stay in their pasture with much extra hay. Luckily I have a few weeks until my next weekend responsibilities!
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