April 30, 2021
We have been making excellent use of the creep feeders we built last year, and I have to admit, they bring me way more joy than is truly warranted. A creep feeder, technically, is any set up that allows younger, smaller livestock access to extra feed and excludes the larger, adult animals.
It's not really much to look at, just a pen with an opening big enough for the lambs to get through but too small for the bigger sheep to enter. Perhaps because I grew up the youngest of five siblings I am thrilled with anything that allows the littlest, youngest, weakest ones a place of their very own. As the lambs gain independence from their moms and start to venture out and explore their world, they quickly discover the spacious play pen with lots of feed, friends, hay, and plenty of fresh water in a lamb sized bucket. I love to watch the littlest ones come blasting through the opening leaving the rest of the flock behind. The adults, thoroughly excluded, bellow their frustration but are helpless to do anything but watch and complain. Last spring, a yearling (a lamb from the year before) who had outgrown her entry status, being slightly too big to fit through the opening anymore, got hopelessly stuck, and had to wait for me, crowbar in hand, to rescue her.
When not watching the lambs in their creep feeder, I have been shearing my way endlessly through the flock. Thankfully, most of our sheep were shorn in March, by our excellent, sheep whispering, zen inducing, professional shearer. At the time it seemed too complicated to combine the 3 flocks (the lambs that winter over at our house, the yearlings at Mountain Spring and the adults at Hill-Stead) so Colin sheared the ones at Hill-Stead and I figured I could shear the rest. It is true - I will shear the rest and it will get done, but there is certainly no zen, or sheep whispering, when I do it. In fact it looks more like a cross between a drunken bar room brawl and sumo wrestling with half naked sheep.
The yearlings are extremely nervous for their very first shearing. Spirited and sprightly they kick, fight and struggle endlessly. Whenever I finally finish shearing one I am so happy to just stand up straight and stretch my aching back that I happily announce “ Your done, I win, see ya!” But as much as they kick and struggle while being shorn, as soon as it's over, they seem reluctant to leave. I don't know if they just get stuck in stubborn mode and once it was clear they are free to go, they no longer want to, or if they are confused by the fact that their fleece is now on the floor beside them. Next year I vow to get all of the sheep shorn professionally, if for no other reason than to spare them the indignity of a really bad haircut, and me the indignity of an acutely aching back.