The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: plumseverywhere on June 05, 2014, 07:13:55 pm
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I have one ewe that is incredibly hard to catch and work with. Last year she managed to scale the hurdles while the Singing shearer was here and took us an hour or so to re-catch. This year, i've been bringing her into a small area reguarly with the little flock, rewarding her with some sheep feed/cracker and remaining calm and quiet to try reassure her that going in there isn't all bad.
Today I noticed blowflies showing interest in her rump so tried to have a better look and she kept skipping away. Led them all into the small area but still unable to catch her, the others will stand still and let me do feet/dagging/whatever but this one is a nightmare :(
Eventually managed to catch her in the shed, popped the rope headcollar/lead on and tied her to the fence, started to look in her fleece, unable to find actual maggots but before I had chance for a proper look she'd lost the nose part of the collar, the neck was tightening and she fell to the floor, more I tried to loosen it, more she struggled, Terrifying. I'd obviously put it on wrong, despite using it loads of times correctly, feel gutted. Not only because she was slowly strangling but also because now all my hard work of getting her into the safe little area is now ruined and I have a traumatised sheep.
I really don't know what to do at all, am sat in tears, covered in stinging nettle rash and stuck for options. dreading the shearer coming now.
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All our sheep bar one are incredibly easy to handle, and some are bordering on tame and will come over for a head scratch with or without a bucket. The bar one (baa) one has lived here since the beginning and has no reason to be so wild (other than genes) but she just remains as scatty as the day she arrived. On one occasion some of our neighbour's sheep broke into our field and we realised that our tame calm sheep are perhaps the unusual ones. The intruders tried to leap our stock fence with barbed wire above and one become entangled and was hanging by the neck. if our wild girl Polly didn't consistently produce great lambs we'd have probably given up on her but we just have to handle her differently. if she's lame close to lambing we have to leave her to it as the stress for her of being caught would far outweigh the discomfort of being lame and we know that hurdles wont contain her so we always get her in the barn first some sheep just shouldn't be haltered I guess. on the plus side, shearers are pretty used to immobilising the most wayward of sheep- some poor sucker manages to shear our neighbours sheep every year- on almost every occasion we gather up our sheep the result is usually pretty unpleasant for them and they still come. wouldn't think todays events will make her any less or any more inclined to toe the line
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Thank you.
Just feeling sorry for myself, stiff drink and I'll be ok. Was just a horrible chain of events today, I had my 9 & 7 year old daughters trying to help me (calmly ) and it was in fact them that managed to get her in the shed. I'm a bit short, a bit unfit and no good at tipping sheep and my husband doesn't 'do' livestock so I'm reliant on 'good' goats and sheep to make life happy :)
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Don't lose sight of why you keep them, if it is for enjoyment you have them and one sheep is causing you to be upset - my advice would be to replace it with one that does not cause you to be upset.
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i'd agree with Me- if we weren't still reasonably agile and able to cope with Polly being hard work she'd have to go
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Plums, sorry you have had a bad day.
It seems we all have one wayward sheep. My problem girl is Penny. She is always the last to have anything done to her because she keeps the furthest away.
I got the girls for their fleece and as pets. Her fleece is rubbish and she doesn't like petting so I have made the decision that she is going.
Just to make you smile, I wanted to do them with Dynamite today to keep the flies at bay until they have been sheared.
OH and I managed to get them all one by one and a good mornings work was done, only to find that I had used the wrong spray and it only contained water. :(
Guess what we are doing tomorrow morning? :)
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I am so sorry to hear that. My advice is get rid of her, if the other sheep are fine then that's Ok. Whenever I have sheep which are nutters I tend to cull them, because you want easy to handle sheep and not ones which cause trouble. Hope this helps and good luck with shearing
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I also have a difficult sheep, She happens to be the boss sheep that leads the rest, when she says get up and graze, they get up and graze, luckily when she says don't bother going in when "she" calls , the food takes over and they ignore her !!! She then follows them in to see what's going on because she can't see them. This year, so far, she's a bit better, she's 4yrs old now and has been boss for 1-2yrs now since she tackled her mother Mrs Mule and won. You either have to put up or get rid but one of the others may take her place !!! :fc:
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I think the get rid option is one I might consider. I'm friends with the local commercial farmer who has said before what a lovely looking sheep she is, I wonder if she might be easier in a large flock with proper working dogs, proper race/handling equipment/lots of strong lads to do work with her when needed?
Just been out and stroked her on the nose, she's still coming up to me... so long as theres a fence between us.
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I had one of these too, she would wait till you had everyone rounded up then take off in the opposite direction with the others following behind, her daughter was exactly the same. The final straw was when I had them all in the stable and just as I went to shut the door she charged and caught me right in the middle of the chest, could hardly move for days.
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Sorry you had such a stressful day.
You may well be right that she'll be less of a 'problem sheep' in a larger flock where there are different handling systems.
In the meantime maybe a different kind of head collar would be safer? I have 'fixed' head collars (horse-type, made from webbing, not sure what the proper term is), they don't tighten and once you tie up the buckle there is no way part of it of all of it can come off (and if it would, it wouldn't strangle the animal).
I got them from Llugwy Farm, they do them in special sizes for all kinds of animal, someone here recommended them in a thread.
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I'm going to buy one of those ladyk, sounds perfect for what I need. I think I literally lassooed today but stupidly had it wrong way when i popped the nose piece over.
Interestingly I just found this thread - http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=38146.msg377337#msg377337 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=38146.msg377337#msg377337) - the sheep in question is a Wiltshire/texel cross. Seems wiltshires are a bit 'flighty' in nature!
Hoping that the selfshearing atributes will also show themselves, her belly is already bald and she's rooing a bit round the neck, woudl be great if she doesnt' even need rounding up for the shearer!
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Our flighty one is called Sylvie. Every year I say she is going to go...but she gives me lovely twin lambs, is a brilliant, protective, canny and milky mum. And her daughters are nothing like her in temperament :relief: but still have her attributes. So she gets another reprieve... ::)
Don't let one bad day get you down, we all have them :hug:
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Cant be fun so why dont you do a home kill and eat her?
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Yes we all have one the black sheep of the family so to speak. I have one who was murder but every time she beat me I made sure that it would not happen again. Bigger, higher, handling pen more time spent with her headcollar training feeding her out of my hand and handling her she has a very good fleece a good conformation and gives me good lambs. I like to think it's character. I also have Skinny a thin ewe who is the one that helps me no end with leading the others into pens etc she is ugly often has a shitty backside has no lamb this year but is a valuable part of the flock. I have ones that crowd me when I have a bit of feed in a bucket ones that stay just out of reach others that stays a fair bit away they are all different. I am trying to breed for conformation, fleece quality, hardiness and temperament it's sometimes a compromise as is most things I find. Anyway you come to your own decision and whatever that is will be the right one for you so don't beat yourself up over it. All the best.
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Cant be fun so why dont you do a home kill and eat her?
not an option here JS for several reasons although it became a close reality yesterday >:(. Do you think a Wiltshire X (texel dad) could shed her own wool? she's lost all from under her belly and I'm really hoping she'll do the whole lot after yesterday :innocent:
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Was she the one that got loose and then Philip managed to catch in a river at the bottom of your field? Philip's Dad was telling me that Philip quite enjoys running around after the sheep! :innocent: Philip came and sheared mine on 24th May - I thought he was on his way to you afterwards but perhaps the horrible weather put paid to that. Hope the shearing goes well for you.
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It all went wrong Zakthelad - I'm on vodafone and Philips sister sent me a text saying they were on their way and were the sheep dry... unfortunately no text came through (well it did about 6 hours late) and when they couldn't find anyone at the other farm they were seeing before us (also on vodafone) they turned tail and had to head back to yorkshire. Heart sinking moment as I'd managed to pen them all up and they were dry - agh!!
We weren't the river incident (reassuring to hear others have errant sheep though!) our incident involved Philip and I chasing this sheep around the 3 acre field she'd managed to jump into then me being dragged on my belly over thistles by a sheep on a rope lead. Soon as we stopped her she wee'd all over my legs. Can laugh about it now. just.
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Not sure what is happening with mobile phone signals around this area at the moment - I am with Orange and having terrible problems with texts. Like you, some texts do not arrive until hours after they have been sent - I get waken in the middle of the night at the moment when the text alert goes off! I also can't send texts or make calls in the house but if I hold the phone in the air I can - really bizarre and very annoying. It has been like this for over a month now and apparently it's something to do with one of the local transmitters not working (but they haven't rushed to fix it).
I know Philip's Mum was trying to text people whilst Philip was shearing mine but was having issues with the signals etc. Shame you had them all in and dry but hopefully all will go well for this time. I was also hearing about your goat soap and how excellent it is
:thumbsup:
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So, so frustrating isn't it?! I used to have really clear signal here but now its gone and I have 2 years on this contract. I know someone on here said you can set up a 999 text service so tha tif you don't have clear signal in your fields and need emergency help you can text for it. must set that up.
Ah that's really nice feedback about the soap! Been working 14 hour days for the last 2 weeks, manically busy, can't complain. Off to sell at a 3 day festival today that is a joint celebration of vintage VW's and also a commemoration of the DD landings as its held on a military site with hundreds of tanks etc :)