Once again, I learn a valuable lesson during my foray into the life of those wonderful wooly things I truly do enjoy.
So I am currently in charge of, and the sole caretaker of, a fair sized flock of sheep, four horses, five border collies, A mirema cross and a Komondor. Oh, and a bunch of cats and some cool tropical fish, including piranhas who would rather eat fish food than the guppies whose population they were brought into control.
This, of course, involves a rather detailed number of chores. I start with graining the sheep, which is sometimes relatively easy, as Dot the border collie is desperate to work and usually doesnt' allow the sheep near their feeders until called off. This is great if it means I can get the grain dumped before the sheep get there - much easier than tripping over, being shoved by, carried by, and knocked down by a whole flock of supposedly starving (I know the truth, though!) woolen beasts. They may be little, but they ARE mighty.
Of course, usually It doesn't work that way. Dot thinks it's much more fun to just control their movement to the feeders and still let them get there - ever so slowly - because it's way more fun to hide under the long feeder and randomly grab a leg and send a sheep flying over/into/through the feeder than it is to just hold them off. So often, I'm left navigating the floodwaters of wool anyways, while the border collies help by making their movements even MORE frantic.
That done, I feed the two small corrals - the rams and a couple of ewes, and fork hay around in their feeders. The coarse stuff they don't eat goes to the horses.
Then, and this is where it got interesting today, I take a large tarp and haul a few tarpfuls of hay from around some of the bales in the pen with the bulk of the flock - the mature ewes - and haul the tarpfuls to the horses. They have four bales standing up, each with a wire cage around them. Once the ewes eat head holes in the hay, the cage is peeled back, layers of hay forked off, and cage replaced. Then, once they've picked through the hay forked off, it's fair game for the horses. So I'm off forking hay onto the tarp, impeded as usual by numerous border collies who all insist on sitting right where I want to pick up hay, or right where I want to throw it, or fight on the tarp in the middle of my hay pile, or.... well, you name it, they're doing it. Anything to be underfoot.
Apparently, though, my calculated decision to not fork a bale to the core yesterday was the wrong one, though, as today I was not only joined by all of the dogs, but by about 70 sheep, all billowing around me, milling on the tarp, making sure I could most certainly not get the hay onto it ... and oh, they didn't want to EAT it because they knew they'd already picked through it and eaten their preferred bits... but of course, if they get in the way, I'll feed them too, right?
Well, eventually, sure. But at the moment, I had horses to feed. So I did what any sheep loving, farm girl would do. I went "pssshhhhhttttt" and made a careful shooing motion with both the pitchfork and my arms.
Apparently, this was the wrong answer.
Next thing I knew, EVERY dog on the property was galvanalized into action. Not only the 5 border collies, but also the Mirema AND the Komondor, who are usually dignified enough to NOT get in on it, especially since their job is to guard the sheep, not herd them. Not only that, but there wasn't a single animal trying to do something in the same direction as another. How seven dogs can go seven different directions even I can't figure out. Everything was a huge flurry of activity, there was black and white and WHITE everywhere...and none of it was snow. I did catch Hanne, the Mirema, dragging a ewe by the scruff of her wool, but other than that, I coudln't even tell you who was where. So this scurrying flurry of sheep and dogs went flying around helter-skelter .... my cease and desist commands useless. So I took the opportunity to remove a cage and start forking hay around a bale.
Eventually, the dogs listened to me, and everything settled down, except the sheep, who were frantically eating like their lives depended on it...and the border collies, who randomly charged into the flock to scatter them whenever they thought I wasn't looking. And the Mirema and Komondor, who were busy playing "Leap-CRASH" in which they leap in to the air and crash into each other, fall down, get up, repeat...... in the snow.
I did get the horses fed, and the sheep are now happy campers until morning...and, by the way, they certainly aren't skinny... And the dogs are bursting with energy as the weather warms... And I, well, once again, I learned a valuable lesson. Never say "pssshhhttt" and try and shoo sheep. Especially when there are over-eager, super helpful dogs involved.
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