SheepShed
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Bad ewe dayOr 'Sheep and hangovers don't mix'.
Darling son got 3 A's for his A level results yesterday, so a celebration ensued. This morning Mrs. Sheepshed departed for Leeds to see her daughter, so son and I decided it was an ideal opportunity to give the ewes a thorough pre-tupping once over, including applying some more Click, given the warm moist conditions and prevalence of flies. Son had also reported that one of the ewes had 'a bit of a gammy eye'. Normally we work together like well-oiled machine, so we anticipated whizzing through them and spending the afternoon watching the cricket. If only we knew ...
The ewes showed a marked reluctance to move out of the field, and the dog didn't seem very keen to help either, but we eventually got them penned and started in. First ewe to be handled kicked like crazy, but we trimmed her feet, got some drench down her throat, put a replacement ear tag in and went to spray some Click down her back. Despite the gun having been carefully cleaned and oiled after the last time it was used, nothing happened - it would blow but wouldn't suck. So proceedings halted while I nipped over to a neighbors and borrowed theirs.
Back at the ranch, I unscrewed our gun and hose, reached for the replacement - and knocked the container over, sending £50 worth of Click across the barn floor. OK, we've got some Vetrazin left, we'll use that instead. Successfully mounted that one and started again.
Every single ewe kicked, bucked, struggled and generally made life awkward. About 1 in 4 had lost an ear tag, leading to much faffing around finding replacement tags and entering substitutions on a tally sheet, and only afterwards finding that we now have 2 ewes with the same flock number.
The gammy eye turned out to be Orf, where she had rubbed one eye raw and her ear had swollen up so much I had to cut the tag out to relieve the pressure. Some blue spray, a jab from the emergency bottle of Tetracycline and she's now in the barn looking very sorry for herself.
Four hours later we've finally finished 120 ewes, covered in scrapes and bruises and still wincing from the rigorous scrubbing with soap and very hot water to make sure we don't get any Orf ourselves.
I'm cheered up by two things though - firstly my darling brain-box of a son has apparently got a days contracting on Monday to do the same thing with a flock of 800 hard-core Lleyn, and secondly, when I finally collapsed in front of the telly with a well earned glass of Chardonnay overlooked from last night's celebrations, I discovered that Australia are now 129 for 7 !
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