This morning we found one of our sheep had got it's self caught in the electric fencing last night and died. The fence was off and we had never had a problem in our other field. We are now re-charging all the batteries so we can elctrify it again. A huge loss as we only had four ewes and it also looks like it was fat enough to be pregnant! My husband blames me as I was at home yesterday.
I had checked them at five last night and been in the field with them during the day, so it must have happened overnight. We were both at an Xmas dinner, so didn't re-check when we staggered home.
Apart from the loss, finding out what to do with the carcass is a nightmare. I think I now have the right details, but as I hadn't joined Nfsco and they are closed Saturday and Sunday. I'm not sure how easy it is in other counties, but I can see why people don't follow the rules.
The second problem is the sheep isn't tagged. We bought them from the previous owner being assured they would sort it out. They haven't and I am waiting for the replacement tags to arrive from SfS. Is this going to be a problem?
Now I also have the problem that we may want one or two extra ewes, should I stick with smaller sized sheep as our ram is small? If so, which breed/X breeds am I looking at?
Any advice would be really good.