Sheep herding.

Sheep attempting to steer clear of the dog.

Annmarie has been very ill this week, which caused the cows to choose a day I was gone to act out.  The stupid little bull got out again, crossed the road and jumped in with 20 full size angus bulls.  Annmarie was afraid they would just stomp him into the ground so she drove down to see him with Zeke in tow.  The bulls were treating him like a teenager calf and pretty much ignoring him.  Annmarie decided to leave the bull alone and just notify the bull owners.  She went back to the house and had Zeke chase the heifers into the barn lot.  The bull owners came and put our bull in a horse trailer and brought him back to the house, he ended upin the barn lot.  Which so far has been impenetrable.  No one knows for certain where he got out but I am certain it is the incomplete gate area.  I need to get it done.

Today the girls and I went out to worm the whole flock.  We had a couple of boys to rubberband (castrate), and one to retag.  Zeke herded everyone into the barn then the girls started to try and catch everybody.  The girls wanted to just grab fur and hold on.  I kept encouraging the belly flop method but it wasn't catching on.  I finally had to start catching also.  The belly flop method does work, I may have had more sheep dung covering my entire body than either girl but my success rate was higher.  I even had a twofer!
We found a couple of uhohs.  One of the little boys I banded had a testicle!  I missed it.  So later I will have to fix it.  I sat one of the ewes on her butt to worm her and noticed she had a necrotic udder.  She must have caught mastitis.  The oddest part is she never got sick and her baby never suffered.  We spent three hours out in the barn and all of us were sore.   I put her down and took her body up to the bone yard.  I had to use the tractor as the pickup needs a new rear end and a new fuel pump.  Both are going to cost some money.

One of the good things to come out of today is the girl's motivation to assist me in building a sheep sorting chute is very high.  They do not want to wrestle 50 sheep again any time soon.