Babies tagged

Annmarie and I went out yesterday morning and tagged babies.  There are getting to be quite a few and since we are putting them all together it was hard to keep track of everyone.  We pushed the adults out of the barn then put all the babies and mommas into the barn.  Zeke did a good job handling the new mothers.  When the sheep are in a herd they don't run out and try to stomp on Zeke.  They just all clump together and all the mothers look outward and stomp their feet at him.  The two of us (dog and I) managed to get six mommas and nine babies through the door with very little fuss.  There was some swearing on my part as Zeke did not want to go left.  He always wants to circle right, but the door was on the right side.  We got it and then Annmarie snagged the babies while I tagged them and wrote down the numbers.  We had to leave the wild ewe out of a jug.  We did isolate her with the other mommas so she is not running with the main herd.  Baby is doing fine. 

This morning I had to go out and wrangle the cows back into the front field.  They had pushed down a panel to get out into the CRP.  Annmarie saw them as she was leaving for work.  I took Zeke and we got them in, but there was a lot of course vernacular used over the entire time frame.  Damn dog loves voles and kept getting distracted!  He is a little leary of the cows any ways and the distraction was just too much.   Once the cows were out and I wired the gate shut I had him herd the cows a little bit so he could see what I wanted.  He wanted to chase cats instead of herd cows.  The only animal he truly loves to chase more that cats and voles is the sheep.  Unfortunately for him, I want him to chase cows also.  So we will have to spend a little more time moving the cows around for practice.  It helps the cows learn also.  It still only took me walking time from one end of the pasture to the other with Zeke. No backtracking or running around or lots of people to herd the cows.  So he is effective he just doesn't like it as much as the sheep.  With the sheep he doesn't get as distracted.