Sheep Wrangling
Whew! The Gillespie Stockyard in Fredericksburg sells sheep and goats every Tuesday. So, as we had two rams more than we needed, we decided to catch them and take them up to Fredericksburg yesterday afternoon. Easier said than done...
Steve has one arm in a sling and is not supposed to move his shoulder (rotater surgery last week Tuesday). Macho as he is, he can not catch a 100 lb. + ram one-handed. He DID lure them all (16 sheep total) up to the pen with some feed (they normally just graze) and caught them in the pen.
We borrowed our next-door neighbors trailer and in the process Delores and I loaded up two goats (much, much tamer and easier to handle than the sheep) that she and Jerry wanted to send to market. (Jerry was working and wouldn't be back until after dark.) Steve had to maneuver the trailer for this as I haven't yet learned to drive it in reverse - that's my next lesson. He then drove over and backed it next to our pen (all one-handed) so we could load our sheep.
Well, I couldn't track down any of my normal neighbor-helper men to catch the rams, so I thought I would try it. The pen that the 16 sheep were caught in is about 8' by 20'. So, I got in the pen... The sheep are very skittish and group together with those big old boys hiding behind all the ewes and lambs (they look mean but they are weenies!) I first tried to catch them by just grabbing them by the horns like I have seen my neighbors Stephen and John do. But I couldn't quite get them. During this nuttiness, one of the rams kicked my wrist. Well, that REALLY p___ssed me off! So Steve brought me a lasso and I snagged Buck (he is the ram that led all of the sheep astray before Steve got home, but that is another story...) Steve and I each had him by a horn and wrestled him into the trailer with a nice kick in the b_tt from Steve. We then caught Joe (he is a big, beautiful mostly black ram whose horns were already almost curved around) and again, we each got a horn and wrestled him in.
We also wanted to take Orphan Annie (a strange looking ewe who showed up with Joe - she was very dark and kind of sway-backed and just not quite the same look as the other sheep.) She has no horns, so I roped her around the neck, grabbed her front legs, and picked her up. She had definitely porked up grazing here since she showed up a few weeks ago. I am not sure exactly what she weighed, but I think she was in excess of 50 lbs.
Now, had we been smart enough to video these activities, Steve assures me I could have been famous on "Funnies Home Videos". As it is though, you will just have to use your imagination. :).
Steve has one arm in a sling and is not supposed to move his shoulder (rotater surgery last week Tuesday). Macho as he is, he can not catch a 100 lb. + ram one-handed. He DID lure them all (16 sheep total) up to the pen with some feed (they normally just graze) and caught them in the pen.
We borrowed our next-door neighbors trailer and in the process Delores and I loaded up two goats (much, much tamer and easier to handle than the sheep) that she and Jerry wanted to send to market. (Jerry was working and wouldn't be back until after dark.) Steve had to maneuver the trailer for this as I haven't yet learned to drive it in reverse - that's my next lesson. He then drove over and backed it next to our pen (all one-handed) so we could load our sheep.
Well, I couldn't track down any of my normal neighbor-helper men to catch the rams, so I thought I would try it. The pen that the 16 sheep were caught in is about 8' by 20'. So, I got in the pen... The sheep are very skittish and group together with those big old boys hiding behind all the ewes and lambs (they look mean but they are weenies!) I first tried to catch them by just grabbing them by the horns like I have seen my neighbors Stephen and John do. But I couldn't quite get them. During this nuttiness, one of the rams kicked my wrist. Well, that REALLY p___ssed me off! So Steve brought me a lasso and I snagged Buck (he is the ram that led all of the sheep astray before Steve got home, but that is another story...) Steve and I each had him by a horn and wrestled him into the trailer with a nice kick in the b_tt from Steve. We then caught Joe (he is a big, beautiful mostly black ram whose horns were already almost curved around) and again, we each got a horn and wrestled him in.
We also wanted to take Orphan Annie (a strange looking ewe who showed up with Joe - she was very dark and kind of sway-backed and just not quite the same look as the other sheep.) She has no horns, so I roped her around the neck, grabbed her front legs, and picked her up. She had definitely porked up grazing here since she showed up a few weeks ago. I am not sure exactly what she weighed, but I think she was in excess of 50 lbs.
Now, had we been smart enough to video these activities, Steve assures me I could have been famous on "Funnies Home Videos". As it is though, you will just have to use your imagination. :).
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