Thursday, May 19, 2011

Escape artists

Is there truly such a thing as the perfect fence?  I am seriously beginning to wonder.  I drove up to the house yesterday morning and there were the sheep out in the CRP!  They are not supposed to be there.  That is why I tightened the equipment fence so they could not go out there.  The only sheep that was not out in the CRP was the wild and crazy ewe.  After thinking about it, she never tries the fence and always stays within the proper boundaries.  How is it that the only ewe that obeys the fence restrictions is crazy?  I was in a time crunch so I opened the far gate and drove out to chase the sheep back in.  It was working until the dog came from the wrong direction and chased them back toward me.  So after calling the dog several choice names I got out of the pickup and herded the sheep around the corner toward the gate.  I was walking along the fence line and scared a wild turkey hen off of her nest.  She hung tight until I was about four feet away.  I never saw her until she jumped up.  I would have walked right by as the nest was tucked under tumbleweeds.  She had 10 big eggs in the nest.  Now I just chased the sheep out of the CRP about 3 weeks ago and she wasn't there at that time.

As the sheep got to the equipment gate (5 strands of barb wire fence still standing upright) they proceeded to plunge directly through the fence en masse.  Totally ignoring the open gate 20 feet further down the fence line.  So now I am going to have to string up some woven wire.  So the lesson learned from this is barb wire is basically useless it is only good on top of woven wire to make the fence appear to be taller.  The woven wire only lets them get their head through then it stops them cold.  No amount of pushing and jumping works.  On a plus note all that going thru fences is removing their Winter coats quickly.

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