About three weeks ago, I went out to feed the sheep, and found Baby Jebus II crying continuously. Buck, our ram, had run him off of his mama, Mary, and was preventing him from getting anywhere near her. When Jebus tried to get to her, Buck would butt at him and curl his lip. Buck was also nipping at Mary’s flanks and chasing her around the barn yard, so we suspected that mating behavior might be at play. This seemed odd, though, because she was nursing a new lamb, and was almost certainly not fertile.
We addressed that situation by putting Mary in the horse stall in our barn with Jebus. Solving the problem was a little more complicated than it might seem because, being flock animals, sheep hate to be alone, so the obvious solution of cutting Buck out and leaving the ewes to themselves wouldn’t have worked. Buck wouldn’t have had anybody to keep him company. We hoped that this was a temporary thing that would pass. After all, Buck had been around the last batch of babies, and hadn’t caused any problems at all.
Since then, we bought hay for the sheep for the winter, and it is now taking up a huge section of the barn stall that Mary and Jebus are living in, leaving them with just a narrow corridor at the side of the stall. More fundamentally, the stall is just not suited for them to live in all winter. They really need access to a larger space and the out-doors. So, we decided to put Mary into the enclosure with Buck and see what happened if they were allowed to work it out on their own. Maybe he would get it out of his system.
Well, he chased her around, but he did not get it out of his system. Sheep can run pretty quick, but what I learned today is that they tire out pretty quickly too. They’re sprinters, not distance runners. After just a few minutes, they were both panting and running around with their tongues hanging out of their mouths. Take note of the growly noise he makes as he runs up on her. I bet you’ve never heard a sheep make that noise before! I hadn’t.
We decided the right thing to do was to put him in a separate enclosure. It couldn’t be the barn stall, because he will be miserable if he’s kept alone for very long, I honestly believe he could destroy the doors given enough time, oh, and it’s also full of hay. So we built another enclosure from electric net fencing. The only thing that remained was to get him into it. As worked up as the sheep were, the old trick of putting corn in the corral and closing the door behind them didn’t work. They bolted as soon as I went for the door. So I tied a halter to the door, went in the corral, put some corn in front of me, and used the halter rope to pull the door closed behind Buck when he walked in.
Now, the only trick was to get the halter on him. As soon as he finished eating corn, he looked up and squared off with me. Normally, our sheep are pretty skittish. You’re much more likely to see their ass or their side as they keep their distance. When Buck’s feeling aggressive, he squares off and faces me dead on. This means that I’m likely to get butted if I’m not careful. In the enclosure, it’s relatively easy to keep my distance from him, but the corral is 4′x10′, so that won’t work. Once I get to the side of him, I can control him pretty well. There’s not really anywhere for him to run to in the corral, so he just runs from one side to the other while I pivot around and eventually get a hold of his head and stop him running. But he was on one end of the corral and I was on the other, and I would have to approach him from straight on to get to the side of him. I couldn’t reach out and touch him without touching his head, which incites rams to butt.
He butted at me once, but fortunately, sheep have terrible depth perception and he kind of short-stroked it. I hollowed out and pushed off of his head. He backed up and squared off again. I knew another one was coming. Part of me wanted to get out of the corral, but I told myself that he had to be moved, and to do that, the halter had to go onto his head, and I was the only one here who was going to be able to make that happen.
When he tried to butt me a second time, I scooted to one side and got my arms around his neck. Issa said it looked “badass.” It happened so fast that I don’t really remember doing it. Once I had his head, I put the halter on him, and leading him over to the new enclosure was relatively uneventful.
Currently, he’s in his separate enclosure and the ewes and lamb are in theirs. I’m hoping that him being able to see them will keep him from getting too lonely, because if not, we don’t have many other options. I guess we could separate Mary and Jebus into the second enclosure. At least they won’t be lonely with each other to keep them company. I just hope that the electric fence is enough to keep Buck from trying to get into the other enclosure at them. I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow morning with him wandering around the property or pacing their fence trying to get in.
Ah, the adventures of owning livestock.
