Sheep Close-Ups

Guess which sheep will let me get this close and hold still enough for photos?  Gorgeous fleece.Why, it's Jade! Who else? She's the one in the Santa hat in the previous post.Sheep going out to pasture last week. I've closed the gate today. The grasses are dormant and need warm weather and more daylight to get growing well again...if they get water, that is. This grass is showing signs of drying out. I hope some of the rain that is predicted comes through.

Moving Rams

The sheep are now separated into only two flocks now. There is a smaller non-breeding group and the larger group of ewes who are all (hopefully) bred. A couple of days ago I put the young rams, Nash and Rotor back together and their ewes with the rest of the flock.The trick with putting rams together is to crowd them into a small space until they have figured out the pecking order. They will still fight but can't do as much damage as if they had more room to bash each other. This was too much room even with the barrel taking up space. Rotor, the 4-horn ram was beating the heck out of Nash, the 2-horn. Nash is the bigger ram so it surprised me that Rotor was the dominant one.They spent the night in this space and I took out the middle panel the next morning.Now they are back in the ram pen and best buddies. This is one of the photos I will send in for Nash's registration.This is Rotor. Both are only 7 months old. Another March lamb I will register is Honey. After I sent Ringo off to a friend's farm (when he comes back I'll have to go through ram introduction all over again) the ewes were in the barn near Faulkner. Is this wishful thinking on his part? I sent him out to the field with all the ewes. He found at least one ewe who was interested in him.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...

I am grateful to my friends and family who are taking care of animals and the farm while I am gone. While driving through New Mexico on Tuesday I got a call  and a text with this photo.That's a yearling ram, Foley, with his horns stuck in the 2-year old ram's upper horn. My two friends had been trying to separate them but couldn't do it and called for advice. Not only did the rams continue to push against each other but the curved horn was holding the straight horns too tight.  What to do? I gave the OK to cut the horn and told them where the wire saw was. But that's not an easy task. We finally thought of one more person to call--my future daughter-in-law's brother who lives in the area. Fortunately he was home, came over, and cut Ringo's horn.  That did the trick. Foley was fine but Ringo was a bit worn out--maybe from the angle of his head and neck for the whole time that they were stuck together and the fact that they had been struggling out in the hot sun. (He's fine now.)Lyle took the horn home as a souvenir. Once again, thanks to everyone who is helping while I'm gone.