Juno, Jura and Jinx
Posted: Saturday 8 September, 2007
There was great excitement today as the foundation stock for our pedigree Ryeland sheep flock arrived.
Dan was out at the crack of dawn finishing setting up the new electric fence. To be honest, we've not had good reports about sheep and electric fencing, so we'll try it and see how it goes. At the moment, it's only used to keep them out of the orchard, so if they get through it, it's not a great disaster. The first to get zapped by the fence was a Black Rock hen - no eggs from her today!
The second was Meg, who had been through the fence fine but on the return, she stopped half way with the middle strand on her back. What a yelp! I felt so sorry for her, but she's none the worse for it.
Jane and Ian, the breeders, kindly delivered the three ewe lambs this morning. To save them coming right along with the trailer, Dan lifted them over the stile. Two are quite small - the dark brown one is somewhat larger!
I want to spend the next week or so getting them tame - they already recognise a bucket, but don't recognise me yet. The dark brown one, Juno, is the boldest and also the greediest (or maybe the greediest and therefore the boldest). She's also about half as big again as the other two, although she is about a month older and was a single lamb whereas the other two were twins (not with each other - each had a male twin). They are all half-sisters.
These girls are well used to dogs - Tess tried to move them and they lined up and looked her her as if to say "Oh yeah, you and who else?". To be honest, our dogs aren't that interested in sheep any more.
My only concern is their ears. They've just been tagged, so I'll need to watch for flies.
They are terribly cute, as you will see from the photos. Naturally, we will keep the diary updated with progress.
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Comments
Not A Proper Farmer
Good luck on the Ryelands - they look like the business. We have just started a small pedigree Southdown flock - and we are now completely absorbed by our sheep...they are addictive.
I guess you know this, but trick with electic fences and sheep is to do a bit of training and ensure that they get a zap on the nose or ear by fencing up a smallish area only first - once their fleeces have grown they will be so well insulated and may not feel too much. It sounds a bit cruel, but once they have learnt that the fence is bad they stay a way from it. So far we have not had any probs with using an electic fence - but it could change in the winter once they have a full fleece.
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Carla
Sunday 9 September, 2007 at 6:13pm
Awww, cute. :-)
Good luck with them, love your site!