Monday, June 23, 2008

The Ewe-Haul


After carrying new lambs back to camp - one in each hand, or in the case of triplets, two in one hand, one in the other for 1/3 of a mile or so, Larry was so kind to build me this great Ewe-Haul! It works great! Notice the neighbour's cows looking on with jealousy.
Normally the ewes come in each night to camp which is at the top of two pastures that I've split up into littler pastures that they get to graze one pasture at a time. It works out fine if they have their babies in the morning, then they have all day to get to know one another and the babies get strong enough to make the walk to camp. But, if they're born in the late afternoon or evening, the babies are just too new to make the trek. I like them all at camp each night despite having 5 dogs and a Llama, just because coyotes are about the smartest animal on this planet. You never hear of a coyote going extinct or endangered - they've adapted and hung on and thrived all these years, says my dad. Which of course makes it true!! (I love my dad!)

Our county put a bounty out on the 'yotees' 2 years ago and the ranchers and farmers around here did a good job of reducing the population - they were insanely dense in this area. Two guys alone killed 145 or so of them.
So, the Ewe-Haul is a great tool in my Shepherding arsenal. My arms are so grateful! Now, I need to keep them in shape and go pound some posts! (And not the blogging kind!)

3 comments:

Jayne said...

A perfect ewe-haul indeed!

Michelle said...

What I've experienced is that when "man" goes gung-ho killing one species, another one gets out of control. When we lived in Texas there was a killing spree on coyotes for awhile -- and then the rabbits overran the farmers for a few years!

Evelyn said...

"Ewe-haul" --- I love it!