Prison Riots

7:43 PM Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Temperature: 34 F, raining

Late last night a last-minute check on the newborn lambs resulted in Hercules deciding that he should jump the fence to check out this potential threat; armed only with a dying flashlight and alone, a farmer managed to get him back into the enclosure while keeping Mitey from taking advantage of the now opened gate without getting attacked. The lambs were fine.

Early this morning there were snow flurries, although they didn't last and the snow didn't stick. It was followed by strongish winds, which kept blowing the cover off Minnow's cage. It's now being held down with paint cans until we get a resized tarp fastened. Mother and babies appear to be doing fine all the same.



A down side of last night's debacle is that Hercules has learned he can, in fact, jump the fence, and he did so late in the afternoon, running around trying to find a way in to the ewes in the other pasture. As one farmer was in Seattle today, it fell to the other to round him up, done in part by tending to the dinner feeding and lining his usual pasture on three sides with an additional line of fencing a bit out from the first and blocking off the space between the two pastures with him on the inside.

This did result in Mitey and Double Nickel slipping out for a bit, but as the space was blocked off, it wasn't hard to get them back in once Hercules was back in. More of a problem was that once that was done, Hercules rapidly decided there was enough space between the two fencelines for a safe jump. It kept him relatively corralled, but still on the wrong side of the gate. Opening the gate resulted in almost all the rest of the sheep following him out.


Fortunately, the blocking still worked; the gate was pegged open to block one route, which left them in more difficulty for wandering, and eventually they were rounded up again. Hercules had not tried another jump since the fenceline was shifted inwards, but we'll check up before bedtime and hope for the best. Deer fencing (6 ft high or higher) may be in our future. If he keeps jumping, tomorrow's trip for both farmers up to Seattle may have to be postponed so that one farmer is on hand to keep the situation in hand.