Baby catchup

Annmarie and I intended to get all caught up on the sheep Sunday afternoon. We were going to tag and band everyone and finally get an accurate count on our babies. The sheep have been in the barn lot only so they are eating the grass to minimize the amount the horses get to eat. Also the sheep don't need to be making those babies hike a mile each way. The barn lot is only 100 yds X 60 yds wide. Annmarie doesn't want the horses to get a lot of green grass so they have health issues so the sheep are doing them a disservice and keeping the grass nice and short. 

We used both dogs, I had Mouse on s leash and then ran Zeke with verbal commands. We rounded the sheep up and pushed them into the barn except for the two little babies that did not want to go inside. We had to pin them into a corner and catch them to get them inside. Mouse kept looking over at Zeke whenever I made him sit and stay next to me. He is starting to catch on that staying and focusing on the sheep is part of his job. It's not fun chase games all the time. 

I grabbed the tagging and banding tools and plopped down in the straw and waited for Annmarie to bring me a baby. We could just grab them randomly but we kinda wanted to get them assigned to the correct mother in our spreadsheet. We did this until I ran out of blue tags they only went to 110!  I had no idea I needed to order more tags. That means we have had over 200 sheep in the last few years. I obviously need to order more tags ASAP. We have had more babies and I tried to count them but it is so hard. The only way you can tell some babies are tagged is it weighs down their left ear and it droops. You cannot actually see the tag without getting in the right location. The weather has been so bizarre. In a few weeks we will probably open up the bottom pasture for the cows.  The grass is greening up everywhere. 

We did find the deceased alpaca. I will be making a trip to the boneyard for the baby lamb, alpaca and some chickens to rest in their new home. I am hoping to work in our yard fence next weekend and work on making it dog proof so the two collies don't have to be on the overhead runs. They have started to dig and have holes all over the yard.