Pied Peeper

This weekend, we discovered Charlie Bucket, our yearling ram, had an eye issue. His eye was weepy, blinky and quite red when we spotted him. Likely he scratched it on something in the big new pasture.


This was a new one for us. But, luckily, I got some terrific advice from the folks at ISBONA (They are awesome!) and was able to call the vet and get him to give us the ointment needed without an expensive visit. I just picked it up and brought it home.

But this left us with another little hurdle: How to catch Charlie when he had a whole gigantic pasture to take off into? In the smaller pasture, the sheep were pretty well trained to come runninng at the sight of grain... a bucket a cup, a handful. Didn't matter to them. But now, with their bellies full of lush green grass, the grain ain't quite so tempting... Heck, they can go all day without having to lay eyes on us and I suspect they like it that way.

We called and shook the grain bucket, but only Daisy (The kids don't call her "Pigsheep" for nothin') and her two humongous lambs showed up. So Dan ranged around, trolling for sheep, his enticing bucket of grain shimmying like a maraca. After some time (in which I took a zillion somewhat comical pictures) most of the flock appeared and Dan led them towards the barn like a modern day pied piper.

Once we got them into the "down barn" it was no sweat to wrestle Charlie Bucket still and goop up his eye. The next day, we repeated the procedure and viola(!) The eye is just fine!

BUT-- We will need to catch the flock this weekend to administer CDT boosters to our eleven lambs and check condition and THAT should be another thing entirely.

We're hoping our dogs-- our sheepdogs-- will prove useful. I'll certainly keep you posted.