What an adventure raising sheep is! There's the joy of watching new lambs have their first venture outside. Then, the anxious moments watching them encounter the rest of the flock, and trying to keep track of their moms. As shepherdess, I especially worried about Lindyhop, as a new mom, being able to keep Reggae and Disco with her. Meanwhile, the older lambs (by a mere 3 days), Tucker and Twain are already kicked back with Tehya, like old hands at the sheep thing. Shearing day is always a stressful day and a blur: the preparation of syringes (for vaccinations) and labeling of fleece bags, and listening to all the sheep hollering because I don't let them out and feed them that morning, and the rams bloodying each other in nervous anticipation, and the shearing seeming to take forever and then suddenly being done. Yahtzee, the last in the ram group and last of the day to get shorn didn't fare so well. In trying to escape being caught and taken to the shearing tarp, somehow he broke his foot. This was a first for us. The vet came the next day, and under Valium Yahtzee got his foot repositioned and splinted. He's got his own suite in the lambing shed, which he didn't fully appreciate until Gene put up some extra two-by-fours to hold him in... Gene and I got to monitor both Yahtzee and Chenoa this morning. Chenoa presented us with a hefty ram lamb, probably born about 2 a.m. When I came in from checking and feeding sheep this morning and told Gene we had another ram lamb, he said, "Pop the champagne cork!" in jest. But thus, Champagne earned his name. Nine pounds, two ounces! What next? One more ewe left to lamb...
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sheep thrills
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