Hare-brained Sheep

It is generally thought that among the animal kingdom, sheep are one of the dumbest; but any good shepherd knows that to manage sheep effectively, you have to out-think them.

A mystery of nature is that, hares are pretty stupid during their mating season - they just stand there in a stupor, waiting to be shot.

On the other hand, hares are too cunning to jump into any trap that would catch rabbits.

Anyway, back to sheep. Last autumn was a dry one and there was no growth spurt in the grass that could be saved for grazing during the winter, which was much colder than normal. My sheep quickly chewed out even the rougher pasture I had available for them.

Now in my retirement, I’m down to just seven breeding ewes, but when their lambs are born in late spring, my paddocks will have to fill maybe twenty varying sized sheep bellies, so even though the numbers are small, it is sensible to manage the feed.

Of course I could tear off to buy supplementary feed – hay, silage, barley and the like but because of the shortages, all were expensive and not so easily procurable.

We were expecting our two young English grandchildren [with their parents] to stay with us for a month and I knew they would like to experience livestock. So to tame the sheep I hand cut roadside grass and supplemented it with quality sheep nuts.

We have wide road reserves, usually as much land on each side as the carriageway itself. As well close by is the railway line also with a sizable reserve.

The wild grass isn’t much as far as stock fodder goes, but like old Captain Cook introduced citrus into the diet of his crew to prevent scurvy, I know that in late pregnancy, if ewes do not have enough green fodder, they suffer from sleeping sickness disease and often die.

With very limited forage in the paddocks, even with mineral rich nuts [a by-product of flour making], my sheep really did need some green food in their diet.

The main grasses available are cooch [twitch to some] and cocksfoot. There is also a fog-grass like grass that is not so common but actually preferred by the sheep.

It’s just a matter of cutting the grass with a sharp knife and stuffing it into fertilizer bags, the sheep are given one bag of grass in the morning with about four litres of nuts then in the evening another bag of grass. It is enough because they sit to chew their cuds soon afterwards.

But they like those sheep nuts! I think they would eat them until they burst! It is interesting to watch them, they will not eat the grass in anticipation of the nuts, but once they have vacuumed the nuts, they chew up the grass. Sheep are not silly – they know exactly what they want.

Chaffinches and hedge-sparrows [dunnock] are opportunistic and pick up the dusty bits the sheep miss.

Actually the sheep put a little bit of pressure on me. Unable to wear a wrist watch, they tell the time by the amount of daylight, so when they wake up, they think it is breakfast time! As spring springs, the days lengthen, so that now it is daylight when I’m having my coffee and my breakfast. They stand at the fence giving me ‘the eye’ through the kitchen window – watching every movement I make, bleating to encourage me to go out to make my delivery. I don’t even get to read the paper properly!

So take it from me, sheep are shrewd!

With all that in mind, it was a real joy for the kids to help feed out in the morning. Come rain, hail or sunshine they wanted to come with me. At first the lad thought it funny to throw the nuts at the sheep rather than to them, but I taught that by being quiet and not making fast movements, the sheep would become quiet. Then they would stand to be stroked. The kids quickly learned, as did the sheep and they became comfortable with the extra company. Both kids experienced the joy of watching the sheep eat the morsels they had handed out. The squeals of delight when they actually touched/stroked the wool did not upset the sheep because they had figured out that those noises posed no danger.

As for Granddad? He had pleasure watching his grandchildren moving freely among his sheep without them being spooked. He enjoyed the fact that very quickly the kids learned to respect livestock and recognise the birds that visited to partake in the meal.

Grandson may not have cut much grass, but the light-sabre brought forth the imagination and was a delight!