Topic: Tales from the Sheep Ranch

[ShyGuy]

CHAPTER ONE: The Worst day in a young lamb's life.

After the lambs are born in the spring, once they reach a certain age, We would perform a little process on them.

Step one: Tag their ear. We put plastic tags with numbers on them in the ear of each sheep so we could keep track of who is who. (sheep have a tendency to all look alike) The sheep keeps this the rest of their life unless it gets ripped out. The instrument to attach these ear tages looks kind of like a hand held hole punch with a spike in it. When you're done, you can find little round pieces of cartilage on the ground like pieces of paper from a hole punch.
Step two: rubber their tails. Sheep are born with long tails. We removed their tales so the wouldn't get filled with burrs and covered in manure. This poses health risks and lower the value of shorn wool from too many "tags" Instead of chopping the tale off, we would attach a small, tough rubberband (called a rubber) that looked like a tiny doughnut (about barbie doll scale) we stretch this with a special instrument and place it on the tail at the desired link. It cuts off the circulation and slowly kills the tail, which turns black and falls off.
Step three: (for the males): rubber their testicles. Future rams have their testicles removed the same way you removed the tail. Use the metal claw instrument to place a rubber at the top of sack and wait a few weeks and the testicles fall off. Unfortunately, as we men know, this area of the body is sensitive, and yes, it hurts sheep too. However, It is necessary for breeding.

Sometimes our dogs would find a dropped tail or testicle sack and chew on them.

[vudu]

How long does it take for a newborn lamb to be turned into a tasty gyro?

[vudu]

I want a shearing story!

[ThePerm]

see I wish Wal-Mart sold lamb, and I want a tasty Gyro

[ShyGuy]

CHAPTER TWO: A natural Immunity?

When you shear sheep, you collect the wool into burlap sacks. The dirty parts go into a small sack called the "tag bag" but majority of the clean wool goes into a separate, large burlap sack. The sack is about 9-10 feet long and is hung from a metal frame. The wool shears off in an almost solid clump, so you wrap the bundle of wool with twine and toss it into the top of the wool sack.

My job was to stomp the wool down in the giant sack so we could fit more in. The problem is the sack is very large and when your a little kid, you can't crawl out until the wool gets close to the top.It's like a little burlap prison, but that's not the worst part.

The sheep ranch was in what's called High Desert. Instead of trees, there is lots of sage brush. When you have sage brush, you have ticks. Ticks really like sheep. So when you shear, a lot of ticks come off with the wool. Every year, I would be trapped in the burlap prison with dozens of ticks crawling all over the wool, all over the sack, all over me.

The odd thing was, I have never had a tick embed itself in me, or even bite me. Once my mom found one in my hair after shearing, but that's it. I guess I have a natural immunity.

[ShyGuy]

CHAPTER THREE: Blockhead

When I was little, about three or four, I had to be careful in the barnyard. We had a mean Suffolk breed ewe called Blockhead. It was pretty rare for one of our sheep to butt a person, but Blockhead went after everybody. 

I remember once I had followed my Mom down to the barnyard and had found a hen's nest with an egg in a corner of one of the barns. I was proud that I had found an egg! Walking back to the front gate, there was a lineup of three sheep. They all looked the same to me, but I knew one of them was Blockhead. I placed the egg in my pocket and tried go for the door. Blockhead charged out of the lineup and knocked me down. Thankfully, my Mom showed up right then and found me laying on the ground crying. I reached into my pocket and the egg was still whole. Victory!

We butchered Blockhead not long after that. Not because she butted people, but because she would butt the Ram away during breeding and therefore couldn't be used for lambing.

Vengeance is eating your enemies.