Jun 29, 2008
I once bought a truck load of lambs, - refugees from a Hawkes Bay drought. I don’t think they had seen green grass before in their short lives, and it was a pleasure to see the expressions of mingled delight and apprehension on their little round faces as they came down the ramp off the truck. Humility also showed in their pendulous ears as they tentatively tried a nibble at the unfamiliar sward.
Most of them managed to snatch a mouthful or two as I ran them down the track to a paddock I had saved for them, and when they found themselves among grass up to their little navels they could scarcely eat for smiling. Within moments all heads were down as they set about filling their vacant bellies in this newly found heaven. The drought and the long hungry journey in the truck were no more than a rapidly diminishing shadow in their minds. If they had thought to say anything it would have been, “It will take a bloody good dog to get us out of here!”
But sheep soon grow out of the loveable phase. Old ewes in particular soon take on their own airs and graces. Perhaps it shows a lack of moral fibre, to allow yourself to be dominated by the whims and expectations of a flock of sheep, but I tell you they can be pretty intimidating at times. The colourless eyes with that confidently superior expression under the long lashes, the unblinking gaze, as if they knew something that you didn’t, but which you were presently going to find out to your cost and embarrassment. Goats are worse, but sheep can be quite threatening. When they are freshly shorn it is possible for a little while, to detect a shadow of uncertainty in their eyes, as if they entertained some hidden doubts about their newly conferred nakedness, but it soon wears off.
With their full wool on their self assurance is unlimited. Fences they regard simply as a feeble challenge that some imbecile has set before them. They will pause briefly, mystified that someone has yet again thought that this infantile construction would frustrate them, and then barge through the fence, or leap over it with a contemptuous kick of a hind leg and a toss of the head as they amble away, turning at a little distance as if to enquire what your next futile tactic might be. Electric fences are almost beneath their contempt, for with their stout layer of insulation they are immune to the contrivances of Michael Faraday or Benjamin Franklin. And the wider spacing of the wires enables them to gallop through with scarcely a hesitation in their forward momentum. Older sheep are the worst. They have an air of “I’ve been in this game longer than you have, Boy, and I know what you are going to do next before you’ve even thought of it yourself.”
While I still retained a shadow of self respect, I tried to sell the whole arrogant bunch of them, but that meant yarding them first to clean up their daggy bottoms, (they have no shame), so as to make them a little more attractive to a prospective buyer. Even at Tuakau they have their standards. They were reluctant as always to go into the yards, and some would break back in the hope that while I was reassembling them, the others could disperse. However, I am now alert to that ruse, and disregard the breakaway party until the main mob are safely yarded. I then set about rounding up the miscreants, or most of them. On that particular occasion a couple saw what was coming and did the old fence-busting trick and disappeared down the hill into the scrub. I ignored them, no doubt sniggering among themselves.
Dagging itself has its hazards. A sheep on its back is supposed to be a helpless creature, and it is true that I have seen them perfectly biddable in the hands of professional shearers, even quite small men. But let the sheep get a hind foot against any solid object, - a post or a gate, even a depression in the ground, and the next thing you know you are on your back in the muddy yard, with the great brute lounging on top of you, kicking its legs vigorously so as to rub your back into the expanse of accumulated dags. Dagging is not a task for the faint hearted.
Sometimes, however, the price of sheep in the yard is scarcely more than the value of the wool on their backs, so it is better to get the wool shorn off them before you sell them. This has its own hazards. In our case it involves driving them the half mile or so to where our side-road meets the main road, and then turning them into the gateway if you can, before they either get run over by a passing fertilizer truck, or take it into their heads to set off for a day in town. The actual shearing, being carried through in accordance with a well ordered routine, is by comparison, a breeze.
But once they are shorn their character changes. Diffident and slightly humiliated in their nakedness at first, as soon as I start to move them they realise they are now lighter by about five kilos of wool, and their new found athleticism goes to their heads. They leap and dance, and imagine they have returned to the character of their ancestral mouflong, preparing to outrun a pack of jackals. When we get to the main road, their desire to go shopping seems to be heightened too, and it requires real agility and foresight to get them to turn into our side road again.
On the other hand, if you can once get them home, electric fences hold new terrors for them. With their bare feet on the moist soil, and their naked flanks in contact with the pulsing wire, they are highly conductive and vulnerable. You might imagine this would make them easier to direct, but no! Within a surprisingly short space of time they come to regard anything that resembles a fence as a cruel and barbaric trap, and nothing will induce them to venture within yards of it. Furthermore, with their new found agility, and the absence of wool to give me a hand hold on them, it is a business to convince them that they should approach any closer.
Sometimes I wish I were a dog.