Sheepless!

[altivo]

I've mentioned before the fact that we decided to rehome our flock of sheep. A friend of a friend expressed interest last week and an arrangement was reached. Yesterday afternoon our neighbors came over with their "sheep taxi" (think miniature horse trailer) and we loaded the critters up and hauled them away.

Well, it wasn't quite that simple. But Gary had planned well, and we got nine of the ten sheep into the trailer on the first pass. He stood on the rear to keep them in with a panel while we rounded up the one runaway: a wether who decided to go back to the pen in the barn rather than enter a strange trailer. Of course, once he was in the empty pen, he wasn't happy there either and wanted to be with the other sheep. On his second run down the chute he jumped right into the trailer, and we latched the door.

Hauled them 20 miles up to Capron, and they were all lying around in there, calmly chewing their cud, when we tried to unload them. They peered out the door into their new pen. It was bigger than the old one. Nothing doing. They stayed in the trailer. We put hay and sheep chow out. Still no response. Finally we started hauling them off the trailer one by one. After the fourth one was in the new pen looking around, the others decided to join them. Flock animals. Sheesh.

After eleven years, we're definitely ready for a break from sheep. They ended up in a place at least as good as where they were, and we get to 1) save money on hay this year, and 2) enjoy a baah-less autumn. Their new owners get to 1) train their border collie, and 2) learn about wool shearing and washing, and probably spinning. Good deal for everyone I think.

Comments

[schnee]

End of an era, isn't it? But sometimes you have to move on, and at least the sheep are in good and caring hands.

(So in the end, it's not just a good deal for you and their new owners, it's also a good deal for them.)

[altivo]

Certainly better for them (at least for now) than going to auction would likely have been.

It seems the sheep had become more of a burden than I realized. We both feel considerably relieved that the issue has been resolved, though it seems odd that daily chores are truncated somewhat by their absence.

[avon_deer]

There were loads of them in Scotland when I went up there a few weeks ago. There are also loads of sheep in North Yorkshire as well. In fact the Dales logo is this:

http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/11903/wm/pd3093267.jpg

Wool was a huge money spinner for my part of the world in days gone by. Leeds itself was built on the back of the wool trade. Which worked well, as Yorkshire's age old "nemesis" (nearby Manchester) got all the cotton from the US Southern States and made a fortune on the back of that. ;)

Nowadays it's all small holdings. The big industry has gone. But it's always nice to go to those places and hear the bleating. :)

[altivo]

I guess Australia and New Zealand still have big sheep industries. America certainly had large wool-processing mills at one time, but they are all gone now. We still can buy wool fabric, clothing, and yarn, but I'm sure it's all produced offshore.

Sheep are dual purpose animals of course, but mutton and lamb are only minimally popular here, and rarely seen except around big religious holidays like Easter when they are traditional foods for some ethnicities. Wool production was big in the northern part of the Rockies at one time, but I believe most of it was coarse longwool used in rugs and carpets. Now those are made of synthetics and the domestic carpet manufacture has been sent offshore anyway.

[songcoyote]

That's a pretty funny story after the fact; I hope it was half as amusing (in spite of the frustration) at the time as it was for me to read this :)

Getting a burden like that off your back is a real relief even when it doesn't reduce chores, so this could make a rather significant difference for you. We recently reclaimed our back yard from the Berkeley Blackberry Bramble, and it's amazing how those hours of work have resulted in a calmer mind.

Thanks for the stories, and have a great Summer!

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo]

As it turns out, we're very glad the sheep went when they did. This summer's drought, as I feared, has made hay extremely scarce. So far we have nothing, in spite of a promise of 500 bales made by our regular supplier several weeks ago. In a week, we will run out. I can put the three horses on grass for a while, but we must find at least 350 bales to get through the winter. The sheep would have made this impossible.

The folks who adopted the sheep have their own hay supply, as I understand it.