Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Sheep Chores


Our Icelandic sheep have almost finished lambing and they have followed the path of the goats with having way more rams then ewes this year. ;o(( We have lots of gorgeous colors and patterns which make it all the harder to swallow. Ugh. That being said, it was time to rotate pastures, deworm, check feet and put in scrapie tags. The deworming went well and most of the feet were in good condition but the tagging was horrible. My tagger is old and after working with it today, I remember how many ugly words were mumbled the last time I used it. Today was by far the worst. On a couple of the lambs the tag went through but did not connect to the back side meaning I had to punch their poor little ears again. I was stressed to the max by the time I called it quits. I decided to only tag the ones that looked a lot alike and leave the rest until I order a new tagger. Once done, it was time to move them to the new pasture. I grabbed a bucket of grain and called for them to follow. 30 something sheep came running towards me, never slowed down and proceeded to knock me off my feet. They did not bother to go around me but trampled right over top of me in order to get the grain. I had to roll away from the little devils. Other than my pride, a bruised knee and palm were my only injuries and once back on my feet I was finally able to secure them in the pasture where they are now happily munching away. The pastures are beautiful and lush and finger's crossed this year our parasite problem will be minimal.

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