[plt102]

Hi there,

my ewes have had a bit of a hard year this year and had to move location 3 times (due to a messy divorce etc but that's another story). I had to sell my lovely GFD ram last spring and introduced a new Shetland ram in November (he seems to have done his job OK as the girls are bagging up nicely). Anyway, I have a mixture of 5 Shetland ewes and another 7 GFD cross Shetland ewes. In the absence of a ram between April and Nov last year, one Shetland ewe took it upon herself to be the boss of the herd. When I am trying to round them up, about half the flock behave but she stands at a distance and calls the others away, making it very difficult to round them up and she keeps splitting the herd, with most of them eventually wanting to follow her away. I have been told to get rid of her as she is a bad influence, however she has given me 5 super lambs over the last 4 seasons and she has good breeding. Has anyone had experience of a ringleader like this and do you think she might become less wary and protective this year when they make their final move to my new field and don't have to move any more.

[Tim W]

Get someone with a decent trained dog to sort her out
I have done this for someone whose sheep escaped ----1 pet ewe refused to be caught and led the rest of the flock astray--10 mins with a strong dog sorted her and she is as good as gold now

[jaykay]

I had a ewe (I have Shetlands) who did this too - always hanging at the back and calling the others away.
She has calmed down now, and comes to the bucket and into the race with the rest of them - though remains pretty wary.

I think that's Shetlands for you - some of them retain that 'primitive wariness (and some are stupidly tame and eat out of my pockets!)

[Fleecewife]

We have an old Soay ewe, Balou, who when she was younger was always the one to lead the breakaway. She didn't stand and call, but just before the flock was running into the catching pen she would hurtle off in a different direction and the others streamed off after her.
We decided to send her for slaughter as we weren't lambing from her.  For three years in a row she managed to avoid the fateful day, on one occasion simply sailing straight over hurdles and fence in a oner when the others were going into the trailer.  By then we quite admired her survival skills and stopped trying to eat her  , not least because she was getting tough and scrawny by then. 
Now she, another Soay and an ancient Shetland live loose around the place.  They tend to congregate around the kitchen door, begging for crusts and Balou is always the first with her head in your pocket.  We keep her away from the rest of the flock at rounding up time and life is smooth    We also don't have her with our other old biddies as she pushes and shoves at feeding time. 

[plt102]

Thanks guys. Will try to find a sheep dog to help but give her the benefit of the doubt this year to see if she calms down. Would hate to lose her as she is a great mum....

[shygirl]

we had a bossy ewe, she would always be the first to take off and take the flock with her. as we didn't have a dog we put out a tame sheep with the flock knowing he would come to a bucket, and they would hopefully follow him.

[Marches Farmer]

It's OK if the leader is co-operative but I think the other variety are MUCH more trouble than they're worth, nice lambs or not!

[Azzdodd]

Good string dog will do the job.....I often get asked too take my dog up to friends he gets up close an personal without the nip.....bottle fed lambs are usually were it decends from