The Trouble with Some Sheep

This

....Plus This = Big Trouble

Blue (the Merino Ram) has always managed to get himself tangled up if there was any remote opportunity to do so. Usually I leave the strings on the big round bale I put out for him and Lanny Wilson (the wether he lives with). This is so they don't immediately waller the hay bale down and waste a bunch of it. After they eat at it awhile then I cut the strings. I don't use a cattle panel around it because guess who gets their head caught in it. So anyhoo, he has a penchant for getting caught up in various forms in the strings. Lanny never has.

This morning when I went out to do chores, I saw Blue laying down, which was odd. I was afraid he was sick, that the hot weather had finally gotten to him. I went ahead and fed the girls and kept glancing up there. I finally saw a bit of the string around his leg, and then realized what he had done. I never saw such a mess. I finally got some grain, scissors and the hose w/water on (this was my safety tool, once he was free, I would grab the hose and blast him with it, when he decided to chase me). He had the twine wrapped around his hind foot, just above the hoof line about four times, really, really tight so that I couldn't even hardly get the scissors under it. Then he had it looped up and over the back of his neck, under his belly and around the other hind leg---in affect he had 'hog-tied' and thrown himself! He was really subdued and let me work at getting him free. When he started moving around a bit, I just lifted his hind leg and threw him off balance again. After I removed all the string,I poured out some grain on the ground and left him to eat at it while I got out of the pasture. He lay there for a long time and after about ten minutes he finally got up. He was limping but putting weight on the foot when I left. There was big red mark on it. Hopefully no permanent damage. He seemed fine tonight. He would not have been so fortunate if he had done this during the daytime, in the 106 degree temps. I doubt he would have survived. I was happy to be only about five minutes late for work after the big sheep rescue.

However a proper roving blog reporter would have had her camera with her to record the unbelievable sight of a self-hog-tied-sheep.