When I got out to the barn for my morning check of the lambs, I noticed that one of our lambs had lost its coat: the leg strap of the coat had obviously gotten caught on one of the posts of the hay feeder and somehow the lamb had struggled out of it - the coat laid there where it had been abandoned. The problem here is that the lambs like to stand in the feeder to eat - not really how it was intended to work - and as the level of hay goes down, their leg strap can get caught on one of the upright posts. Some of you long-time readers may remember that we had this problem almost daily with Ivy last fall, and she seems to have finally figured out that she needs to eat from outside the feeder! Well, obviously we now have another lamb who is doing the same thing, again!
So, with the untangled coat in hand, I went out to find the "naked" lamb. Since I also had a bucket of grain for the lambs and the few ewes who are still lactating, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and feed the sheep, drawing them all in towards the barn so that I could recoat the lamb at the same time. Well, the grain did the trick, and the entire flock of lambs and lactating ewes came running to the paddock near the barn to gobble their daily grain.
You have to understand that there is grain available at all times in the barn for the lambs. It's even sweetened grain, with molasses in the mix, to entice them to eat, so there is no reason why they should run like the wind to come and eat what I am feeding the ewes. No reason, that is, except that they are sheep, and sheep do things together as a flock.... Plain grain eaten with the flock is so much more enticing than sweetened grain eaten alone in the barn. So they all run in and help the ewes eat up their grain, and then the lambs will run into the barn and finish filling up on the sweetened grain with their lamby friends. I'm sure the ewes would rather that the lambs didn't help them eat their grain, but there isn't much to be done about it.
My plan this morning was to try to catch the naked lamb while he or she was eating, unsuspecting, at the trough with the rest of the lambs and ewes, and then try to put the coat back on. This isn't always easy to do by myself because the lambs aren't always as cooperative as I would like! They usually struggle to run away, pulling and pushing in my hands.... I was game to give it a try, though, so I poured the grain and watched the flock mob the feeders, looking all the while for a lamb with no coat.
Well, he wasn't hard to spot, with his dark wool exposed while the other sheep passed me, all coated in white - Jubal was missing his coat! I grabbed him as he lowered his head into the trough for the grain, and instead of struggling to run off, he stayed put and just ate! I pulled the neck of the coat over his head and found that as long as I continued to let him eat, he really didn't care what I did! I pulled up one back leg to put it in the strap, and he stood there, eating on three legs. I pulled up the second back leg for the other strap, and he still stood there, eating. When I finished, I straightened the coat on him and, believe it or not, he hardly moved - other than his lips and jaws, of course, which continued wolfing down grain from the trough!
It wasn't until the grain was gone that he looked up, saw me standing nearby, and ran for the barn to get away from the "threat" I posed - and, of course, to find that sweetened grain that his friends had already found in the creep area! I don't know what he thought I might do that I hadn't already done, but I guess now we know that Jubal sure likes his grain - a lot!
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