If you live anywhere near the South, you are painfully aware of the drought and heat wave we are in the firm grip of. I do not believe that anything suffers from the heat more than our two well insulated sheep, Cupcake and Jellybean. They live at the ranch where I work and they were miserable, so we called out the sheep shearer to do his thing and make these girls happy.
The first order of business when shearing a sheep is to catch it, which sounds much easier than it actually is. The sheep tend to be less tame and trusting and more nervous than our goats, and they are very fast and surprisingly nimble. This combination can make them extremely difficult to catch unless you bribe them; you can see in this photo that Cupcake is interested in the Fig Newton that is being offered, but is suspicious. When you get close enough, it is a relatively simple matter to grab hold of the wool- but then you have to hang on, which can be a bit more troublesome. Once you get a halter in place and can control their heads the whole job becomes much easier.
Whitney, one of Eric's border collies, looks on.
Eric is the livestock manager at the ranch. Here he is taking advantage of the fact the girls are well secured to give them a dose of worm medicine and check them for any other problems.
Jellybean is frustrated and indignant- she is hoping for a break in the fence somewhere so that she might escape, she has no idea how much better she will feel in a little while!
Jellybean is now on the shearing stand and protesting that fact mightily.
Halfway there!
Just a little left under the chin.......
Lightning, one of our miniature horses, does not like the sheep near his pen and is very protective of his space. The sheep has plenty of room to back away from him, I believe she enjoys antagonizing him.
Whew! All finished, now they can be much more comfortable in this heat.
