Thursday 11 August 2011

The Sheep Hunters

Ok, not literally!
But it does feel like we are sheep hunting at times...
Every morning we bring about 400 ewes ( and some sarplaninac) to the bush to graze.
That means that every evening we have to go to the bush to find the sheep and bring them back to their night coral.

As my John Deere gator has broken down, I was walking to the back quarter to find the sheep.
As the sheep are grazing deeper and deeper into the bush it was becoming harder to find them and it would sometimes take almost two hours to find them all.
Only about 20 acres is cleared on this piece.
The rest of the quarter section is mainly thick bush, heavy undergrowth and with all the rain very wet in places.

After another night of searching, and fighting off the skeet's.
I decided that a change of plan was in order.
This new plan involved our horses (and lots of bug spray!).

Wow, what a difference this change of plan makes:
it goes way faster to find the sheep,
we can see further,
we don't get wet feet,
the horses get to do "sheep drives" rather than cattle drives,
we can enjoy the sunsets
And, it is always good to combine work and pleasure!
Sometimes the kids join me and some times the exchange students on our place join in the nightly sheep hunting session.

Here are some pictures of this weeks sheep drive:

My Allie, is always mindful of the sheep!



Katcha, always joins us,
and more often than not she shows us where the sheep are hiding out!


The Sheep Hunting team:
(Roy, me and Joska)

 

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