Desperately need help catching limping sheep

[soarwitheagles]

Baker,

For future references...you might consider this:

1. Use a specific instrument that produces the same sound every time [we bang on a tin garbage can lid with a piece of metal] and even if the sheep are 1/4 mile away, they come running like Olympic sprinters...

2. Always feed them a favorite grain when they come to you after making the "sound."

3. Have a smaller gated sheep pen, or better yet, a sheep run that you train them to enter and eat the grain after hearing the "sound."

4. Have a movable gate that you can walk all of your sheep into a corner where they cannot move hardly at all [this significantly reduces the risk of injury to you].

5. After you pen them up, jump in and have fun!

Special note: We have done this so many times I have lost count. It is especially handy when buyers come over and they want to first see the sheep up close. It has worked flawlessly for us for some years.

On a side note, I have a friend who is really good with a lasso. He consistently can pick out any animal and lasso it within minutes. I only lived in Texas 4 years, so there is not enough cowboy blood or cowboy experience in my life to accomplish this amazing feat...

You might want to ask Baymule about that method!

 

[Mike CHS]

@soarwitheagles covered everything that we do with a little variation. Our ewes have several "watchers" that seem to let the rest know when we are out because they are almost ready to move when we go out and call them. I don't even have to call them if I'm carrying a bucket. The one thing I always make sure to do though is when they come to me I make sure they get some feed. If I'm out in the field they will get it off the ground but if we are going to bring them in to the handling area to work I have some feed already set up so all I have to do is open the gate. Even the lambs do the same since they just follow their dams.

I know that doesn't solve your problem now but we follow that routine for as long as they are on our little farm. We have herding dogs if needed but we rarely need them. They usually only get to work when I let the sheep graze outside of the fence.

 

[Ridgetop]

Training your small flock to come into a small pen for grain is essential. Our sheep are not super tame, a few are sort of wild. We don't have a herding dog (on my wish list) but by training the sheep that they get grain and feed only in their pens we can turn them out onto the field (5 acres) to graze. They return at dusk for a "night cap" and get locked up in smaller pens closer to the house, or inside the barn if the lambs are tiny. This also gives our guardian dogs a rest at night since it is easier to protect the smaller night sheep pens that are inside the perimeter than trying to patrol the entire acreage that is steep, hilly, surrounded by open hilly terrain, and accessible by predators due to poor sightlines, etc.

It took several weeks of keeping our first sheep inside the barn for a month. Then driving them back into the barn every night for another week or so, to train them to do this. However, we only had to do this with our first few sheep because they quickly taught any newly purchased sheep the routine. The lambs learn by following their moms. When we reconfigure our pens or move animals to a new pen it might take a day or 2 with the grain bucket to learn the new routine.

 

[farmerjan]

We do this with our cattle. The heifers that are born here, and are kept as replacements, will come to us out in the pasture if they see us, thinking that they are going to get something good. Since having the joint - ankle and knee - issues, I also put the grain in the troughs and then open the gates and they will knock you over getting into the catch pen, if you don't get out of the way. . Yes, there are always a few that might be skittish, but they are 99% always the bought cattle that we bring in. And realize, that we move our animals from pasture to pasture, mostly always by cattle trailer, so they have different catch pens to come into at different places. But they learn that there is a TREAT, always, for coming in. The cows that don't like to conform, again, mostly the bought ones, are kept where we can mostly "drive them" to get them to come into a catch pen. Once we wean the calves, if we keep them, they learn that there is feed in the bunk feeders, and that a person is a good thing because they will be getting fed. Most will run right up and try to stick their heads in the buckets before we can even get it into the feeders.
We always put a couple of animals back at the same place they were the year before, so that they become the "leaders" and when we want them to come in, they know what is going on and the others will follow.

I used to train my sows and feeder pigs to go up the ramp onto the back of the truck to get a feeding..... within a couple of days, the piglets would all be on the truck waiting for me, when I would go out the door; and then when it was time to "catch them" to sell, all I had to do is fix it so that they could fit under a sliding divider and the sows couldn't, so they would go on the truck, and I just shut the gate and fed the sows in their pen and in 10 minutes I could have 20-40 feeder pigs on the truck, ready to go to town to the once a month feeder pig sale. Could you imagine the squealing and upset sows, not to mention the mess and exhaustion, of trying to catch 20 or 30, 25 lb pigs to sell...... one at a time by hand ??? 😭😭😭

Nope, You work smarter, not harder.

When I first moved to Va , I was considered that crazy Yankee lady, because I didn't want feed with any antibiotics in it, my reasoning was if they aren't sick in the first place, why feed them something they don't need. (Used to be there was a minute amount of arsnellic acid in some feed as an appetite stimulant) .... To the whole thing of getting the animals to come to me, not me go chase the animals. There were alot of guys around here that had the "grandpa did it this way" mindset.... and I AM ALL FOR OLD-FASHIONED in many ways. But I was a single female... strong but not wonder woman or hercules... so I had to find ways to do it by myself. I had all sorts of "friendly guys" offer to help, but it often would have come with a price tag I didn't want to pay..... Amazed them when I could get things done and come to the sale, clean, and not looking like I'd been rode hard and put away wet.....

Damn, I miss my pigs more now.....