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OHHHH the nerve of some people to offer other poor helpless border collie owners free sheep! :rolleyes: WHAT in DOGS name is the world coming to! I strongly suggest that you take them up on the offer as quickly as physically possible, even if you have to (GASP) let other friends house them on their property for a fee while ( I think Im gonna faint) offer to work for meat!

 

I foresee alot of travel to Alaska next year...congratulations!!

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Ooops... Sorry, Tassie. :D

 

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) no 500 yard outruns for me right now... the area is hilly and wooded, with some open pastures (none of which are anything near that big). That's okay for now... I'm nothing like up to speed.

 

Shetland meat is gooooood. Good. Mmmm. Yummy. But you're right, not a big carcass. However, they're good mothers and (bonus) produce very nice wool (which is of interest to me) and happily, are well-suited to the climate here. Some friends - the friends I'm boarding these with, actually - used to breed their Shetland ewes to a Suffolk-cross ram (big nasty bugger, tried to kill one of the owners once) and their ewes never had any evident trouble lambing or producing enough milk (although I have no idea how much a Suffolk ram usually weighs, so maybe this cross was smaller than a PB Suffolk would be). They did have a few lambs that struggled initially, though. (Some of these I bottle-reared for them and both ended up perfectly healthy - well, until butchering, for the one. The other has a career as a wool sheep and ovine ambassador of one of the few remaining homestead acreages in Anchorage.) At any rate, Shetland-cross meat is good, too.

 

Pigs... urk...! That really WOULD be the wurst! Useful edible beasts, mind you, but I DO NOT need any more livestock at this moment. (Why are you laughing...?) :rolleyes:

 

At any rate, yes - what were those people THINKING to offer me [registered] sheep for free? (although "free" ends there.) How could they place me in such a predicament? And the NERVE of being willing to do the feeding! - Although they already have a couple of goats in the neighboring pen, so it's not much extra work except for the watering. THAT, however, is a right pain in the arse up here from about December to February. (I'll be helping her with the trimming and the worming, though, so they won't be doing ALL the work.) Eh? What was that about needing to buy stock in Tylenol, since I'm about to become their biggest consumer? Maybe I'll just get a bunch of Fentanyl patches and plaster them aaaalll over myself. That would take care of pain control AND be a less expensive addiction, right...?

 

If all goes well, moving day will be this weekend. Although I'm reasonably certain that once you get sheep the term "If all goes well" is supposed to be greeted with cynical laughter....

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Sheep advice.....none of the *BELOW* never happened to me, oh no, never !!!

 

1. When trimming hooves make sure lanyard and whistle are inside your shirt

  • it might get stuck on a sheep leg and when the sheep runs off, so do you, but through the sheep poop
  • it might get sheep poop in said whistle and you might blow on it and realized "oh, oh"

2. Do not trim hooves when other sheep behinds are near you

  • some sheep think it might be a good time to peee
  • some sheep think it is a good time to poop all that lush green gras they just ate

3. Be careful where you put yout bucket of tools

  • some sheep like to steal tools
  • some sheep like to eat a sharp tool

4. When you plan to go out to a fancy dinner (dress,heels etc)

  • plan on pulling a lamb
  • plan on pulling sheep out of ditches

Diane

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1. When trimming hooves make sure lanyard and whistle are inside your shirt

[*]it might get stuck on a sheep leg and when the sheep runs off, so do you, but through the sheep poop

 

Okay, I know this is all supposed to be lighthearted and humorous, but I have to say that this is something that really concerns me. Not so much that a sheep will get stuck in my lanyard, but that it will get stuck in machinery. Aren't there breakaway lanyards out there? I know one guy who wears his (cheap light plastic) whistle on a ball-chain lanyard. I can't stand metal next to my skin. Are there any safe non-metalic options out there?

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>>The event you speak of was pre Border Collie/sheep in a galaxy far far away. Back when I still harbored thoughts of professorship.<<<

 

 

same here.....we call it "Life before the dogs" and also "Life before the farm"

 

I started to get my Master but quit partway....something to do with *hoof trimming*, lambing all hours and so forth...so I just changed my major and getting my Master in sheep/dogs and farm work.....

 

Diane

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