Sheep? Yep, We Now Have Sheep!

Jiggs' first day on sheep! He was hooked!

So I got Jiggs at weaning time from my friend Kat who has a good sized cow/calf operation and raises some fine Border Collies too. Her dogs have all been used on her ranch, and she uses the same techniques that I learned from Tom Blasdell. My Man also thought I should get a back up dog as Rastus is middle aged now...and Kat said she would help me get him started on livestock. OK...here we go!!

A few weeks ago, I went out to Kat's ranch to help her gather, sort and turn out the bulls We also worked a couple of her dogs as well as Rastus and Jiggs on her sheep. And...I came home with three additional passengers in the trailer! Three lil' sheep!

We fixed them a temporary spot in the horse barn with a run. It was good...Whiskey and Boone are now sheep broke!!! LOL! In the meantime, My Man has been "sheep proofing" the cow corrals and setting up a working pen for me...what a sweet man!!!

Today was sheep day...we snagged the sheep one at a time and put them in the horse trailer and took them to what we now call "the sheep barn." Once upon a time it was the Mustang Barn...then the Cow Barn...and now it's the Sheep Barn!

Checking out their new digs.

But, they've already got their heads through the rails!
I hope they stay in the pen!

The working pen took some decision making. We took about 1/3rd of my arena and opted to line it with "no-climb" fencing along the rails.

Then across the center we used t-posts and hog fencing.

We were two hog panels short, so we are giving it a shot with field fencing around this one corner. All the corners are rounded, so I'm hoping that it will help keep the pressure off the corner fences.

Red Dog is running inspections!

The last gate...lined with field fencing.

When you've build everything for cows and horses...it's not easy to convert it to contain sheep!!!

But, Jiggs is ready!!!!! He's been staring at them all day...he knows what they're for!

Tomorrow the sheep will be castrated...yea, we should have done that when they first arrived...and I leave to help Kat again for a few days (along with Rastus and Jiggs). So, when we get back, let the fun begin!

Colt + Sheep = Not On Your Life!

~A large bird circled around me like a hungry man.~

~Katherine Richards 1901~

And Colt thought he was gonna be eaten by the shaggy, wooly THING!

"Who me??!?? I'm just an innocent bystander! I won't hurt you horsey"

At one of Thompson's brandings this lovely sheep was gathered into the pen with the cows and calves. How did it get there? Well, the story as I've been told is that two years ago, Thompson's brought home their pairs from summer grazing and this lil' sheep was mixed in with the herd and just came home with them. Sheep do share the BLM grazing allotments sometimes and this one somehow lost its way and hooked up with the cows. So, it's been at their ranch ever since!

As you can tell, it's never been sheared. Before the branding began, they were going to shear it and get it out of the branding pen. So, they got the generator and the clippers out, but the blades were the wrong ones, so it didn't get sheared.

Colt wanted NOTHING to do with that sheep! He side-stepped, back-peddled and did everything but bolt 'n run (which he would have like to do if I didn't keep him facin' the sheep!) If the sheep had been sheared, it might have been different, but with all that wool, every time the sheep moved, he jiggled...one big bouncing, jiggling THING!! I'm still laughing at Colt. But he wasn't the only horse that had a dislike for the THING! The sheep was finally escorted out of the branding pen.

"Yes...YOU...I don't know what you are,
but I don't wanna have anything to do with YOU!!!"

Then, two weeks later I go back to help move the pairs out to summer grazing...and of course the THING is still there! Martin and David's horses had seen the sheep for two years and didn't mind it at all, but cuttin' a sheep from the herd is a lot harder than cuttin' a cow out...that sheep was stayin'.

So they roped it!

It was quite entertaining to see these two cowboys ropin' the sheep and tyin' it up so we could get the cows and calves out of the field!

Brothers David and Martin gettin' the problem solved.
(No sheep was hurt in this photo!)

It was a grand day for moving the pairs...a lil' bit on the warm side for the livestock, but the views were spectacular~

Great Basin Cattle Country
Steens Mountain stands majestically in the background.

I hope everyone has a great week!!