Sheep Watch

We've had these three sheep for almost 6 weeks now and it feels like they are such an established part of our routine, they've been here a lot longer. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and they've been very little trouble; very happy relaxed animals which are a pleasure to look after. In terms of man-hours they get a bit more attention than any other animals with 2 separate hours of 'exercise' each day in what we call "Sheep Watch".

They have long since munched off all the long grass in their original paddock, so we let them out twice each day to graze and browse around the wider estate. In the process of doing this every day for 3 weeks or so I have come to know them quite well and to be fascinated by their little ways and individualities.

Originally these 'Sheep Watch' sessions were just out to the front lawn and back. One of us (Liz or Myself) would grab a handful of their pelleted feed ("Sheep Nuts") in a plastic bucket and go out to their gate rattling it so they'd come charging over to meet us. You'd open the gate and then lead them, still rattling your bucket, to the front lawn, where you'd give them the nuts and then they'd look up from the buckets and realise there was lovely green grass all around. Their noses would go down and your job was basically done for 50 minutes or so while they filled their stomachs.

When their tums were full of basic grass 'fuel' they would start to look up and look around and maybe start exploring, maybe into the wooded bits or the hedges looking for some 'dessert' of ivy or young Queen Anne's Lace or other succulent herbs. We'd let them do this till the hour was up but by then you could rattle another hand-full of nuts in the bucket and they would rush over and allow themselves to be led home to their  paddock where they'd sit down to 'cud' and digest that hour's takings. This we do twice a day, around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in what we call Sheep Watch 1 and Sheep Watch 2.

As time's gone by they have started to eat off the  front lawn grass and get a bit more curious; more likely to wander about in search of variety rather than focusing on the lawn. They've explored the woods and all round the allotment (where I have to keep shooing them off the curly kale and the human crops and try to keep them on the grass 'verges' or the knackered old slug-riddled cabbage), they've come down through the yard into the Secret Garden and been all up the Primrose Path and ventured into the East Field. This is where watching them gets a bit more serious as the fences outside of their actual paddock might be cow-proof but they are in no way sheep proof. Sheep can easily duck under the bottom barbed wire strand of a cattle fence, so the watcher has to hover nearby to shoo them back off vulnerable gaps or be ready with a bucket of grub to tempt them back to safer ground.

As I said, in the process I have found them fascinating little individuals. I was surprised how choosy they are. Even on the front lawn which looks, at first glance, like an even carpet of grass, there are 'favoured' bits and less favoured bits, so that parts are grazed really short while other bits, such as near tree roots, stay long. Maybe they taste different?

They love to climb and clamber over the raised bits - old overgrown walls and mounds, or stand up against trees to reach up for ivy. This might just be because they are 50% Jacobs, Jacobs being a very goat-like sheep. For me, because of their dark brown colour, they remind me a lot of the dark-phase Fallow Deer in Challock Forest (Kent). They move through the trees in a similar way. I was surprised too by how fast they can move about and run, sometimes kicking up their heels and chasing away for 50 yards or so in a bouncing, leaping run like playful baby lambs. These dashes are the ones which bring them suddenly to the curly kale and have me sprinting after to shoo them away before they get too many mouthfuls! They even seem to do that stiff ankled, high-leaping run which in deer is called "pronking". Again, this might be the Jacob 'mountainy-sheep' blood in them. I didn't even know that ewes squat like a bitch to wee! They are also slightly different, each one, with Constance definitely the most 'tame' and most likely to come and say hello. She likes to have her hair ruffled and lets you tickle her chest and back. Florence (the paler, gingery one) is a bit tame, but Dora will have none of your fuss unless she has her nose in your feed bucket.

It's been fun but now, as I said, they are coming up to a reasonably hefty weight so we are approaching the time when we have to stop thinking of them as entertaining animals and start thinking about live-weight and the yield in shanks, shoulders, leg-of-lamb and rack of ribs.

Hey ho.
Matt

Free Range Sheep

This blog is homing in on the landmark 30,000 visits since we started, with 29,054 as I go to post. Actually, we are now starting to find the "written by Deefer" thing a bit of a pain, so as we hit 30,000 we may just come clean and let Dad write it from Dad's viewpoint. We'll see. Please comment if you'd hate for this to happen.

Meanwhile as both Mum and Dad finish their holidays and the farm moves into Autumn mode (gathering winter fuel etc), the sheep are starting to get through the nice grass in their paddock and need extra ration if they are going to put on all that weight that's being asked of them. This was always going to happen and has been planned for. Grass we can do to beat the band and the front lawn has deliberately been left un-mowed. We had, in theory, only to train the sheep to love us and to come to the rattle of a feed bucket, and we could lead them out to the front lawn, watch over them for the hour or so it took for them to fill their bellies and raise their heads from the grazing, and lead them back again.

 And so it was. The sheep were quickly trained to the bucket and soon came stampeding across the paddock to get their sheep-nuts (some kind of extruded concentrated sheep food which is also, bizarrely, also delicious to kittens, dog and puppies. We will have to have a careful read of the label to see what's in it but anyway, we need a metal dustbin with lid to store it in!

It was Sunday 30th Sept when we first bit the bullet and tried this out. On the Saturday we'd had a visit from Steak Lady, Mr SL and Auntie Mary (The Nun) and we thought that might be one bit of confusion too many at once.

The sheep were brilliant. Dogs were confined to the house. Kittens were allowed out, being unlikely to chase or harrass sheep, and the chickens were out anyway. Dad opened the gate and Liz did the rattly bucket leading thing and the sheep trotted obediently round to the lawn, then put their heads down and ate, ate, ate, enjoying the long, lush, fresh, weekly-mowed since April, grass. After about 45 minutes they got full and started wandering but this seemed to be just to try out some bramble leaves or the herbs around the drive, a bit of ivy off a tree stump, or a curious look out through the gate. The rattling bucket was deployed and they chased Mum and Dad back to the field where they were shut in and everybody relaxed. There was one small hiatus when one found she could actually get back out UNDER the gate but she was quickly rounded up and the corrugated sheet replaced.

 And that is the way it's been every day since. The weather has conveniently played ball, giving us a dry sunny hour each morning to let them mow the lawn some more.

Dad has built them a rudimentary shelter out of the Roscommon squalls. In theory they are ruffty-tuffty animals who can survive the heavy rain and have good waterproof coats which they can shake the rain off, but we saw them standing in a downpour and they looked so miserable, Dad decided that a quick shelter made from our left over joists, corrugated from the collapsed hay barn and a one tonne builder bag wouldn't hurt

Mum and Dad are very much enjoying this sheep-minding and for Dad it has the delicious flavour of Kent/Sussex history. In those counties, especially in Romney Marsh, sheep were looked after by paid workers called 'lookers'  and these poor souls were given a pittance and a single room cottage called a 'lookers huts' as their base. Their job was called 'Lookering'. They didn't own the sheep, just watched over them on the bleak, featureless marshes. More recently, in the days of CB radio, Dad can recall being associated with one Sussex Farmer who had several hundred acres and many sheep down on the marsh. Each morning the 'lookers' (now properly paid farm workers living in proper houses) would go check their animals and 'report back' on the CB to all the other lookers simply by keying the microphone and saying "Baaaa!". To anyone listening in it just sounded like a load of blokes mucking about, but if you knew the voices you'd hear a variety of 'baaaa's and then one would say "Hmmmm, Ol' Fred's not about this morning, then" and someone would be off to double check he was OK and his sheep were all accounted for.

Mum knows how to 'looker'. Pink wellies on and feet up.

Deefs