Smart Sheep

This morning dawned a nice, muggy warm spring day. It was one of those mornings that I needed everything to go right because I had a very tight schedule and it was going to be hard to get everything done. I had done my preparation the night before and chores should have been a breeze. However, it was one of those mornings that I swear my animals and nature conspire against me.

I don’t know if you are aware of it but I have concluded based on my years of experience that sheep are stupid. Not just stupid but mind numbingly stupid, sometimes I wonder how they manage to breath and eat. This morning was one of those days that provide proof of their lack of intelligence.

It all started with my usual walk through the pens. I do this every morning to make sure that I do not have any sick animals or new babies. Immediately I was mobbed by a whole flock of bottle lambs. Keep in mind that they have not been fed for about two weeks now and I do this walk through every morning. This is the first time in about a week that they have paid any attention to me. I do not know what made them think I was suddenly going to start feeding them again, but they certainly had that impression. Wading through the sea of bottle babies made my walk through last longer than expected.

During the walk through I did see a lamb caught in the fence. This is the same lamb that has been caught in the fence, in the same place, for the past three mornings. The last two days it simply took me turning his head (an act he seemed incapable of) and pushing his little wooly head back through the fence. Somehow this morning he had managed to jam his head in a different angle and I could not budge it lose. Finally, in desperation I gave up, went to the barn and came back with the bolt cutters and cut him loose. For all of that he simply shook his head at me and ran off. The ungrateful little booger.

I fed the lambs without incident and moved on to the ewe pen. Keep in mind that the ewes have been in this pen for about a month now and the routine is the same every morning. The pen is two pens together. The pen wraps around the lambing barn and the bunks are about ten feet from the side of one pen but they must go around the barn to get to them. It is something that they have successfully navigated every morning until today. I dumped the feed in the bunks and about five of the fifteen ewes in the pen came around the barn and began to eat. The other ten stood ten feet away looking through the panels and started to threaten a riot.

Sensing that two things might happen. Either the five ewes were going to eat way too much grain or the other ten were going to make a new path to the bunks I jumped into action. Climbing over the panel with one of the empty feed buckets I walked around the shed, just like they had for the past month and led them up to the bunks. We had a small rain shower, the ewes were wet and each one of them managed to rub up against me as they went past making me very wet. As this happened I did share my theory on sheep intelligence with them.  They seemed not to care.

 I finished chores and started to clean the back of my pickup off. We had been fixing fence the day before and I needed to run to town and in the name of public safety I decided to remove all the fencing supplies off my truck. At that very moment, the one dark little cloud above me decided to expend one clap of thunder. Killer, the cow dog, who is deathly scared of thunder sought protection right behind my knees and when I backed up I tripped over him falling into the mud.

As I picked myself up I grumbled about animals and their lack of intellectual capacity. I cast a glance down at the barn and the sheep pens. The lamb that I had rescued was now reaching farther through the enlarged hole in the fence munching on some choice green weeds. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I had thought. At the same moment, all fifteen of the ewes put their heads back down in the bunk simultaneously and I swear I could hear a faint snickering. There I stood, running late in wet muddy jeans. I guess it is a good thing we humans are superior in our intelligence.owH HHHhhhh