ewes in the pen, waiting their turn
We have a lot of baby lambs in the ground. Just as night follows day, docking follows lambing. Docking is important. Sheep are born with long tails. If the tails are left long, and the sheep has diarrhea, which they inevitably will sometime in their life, flies are drawn to lay eggs, leading to maggots. A maggot infestation can quite literally kill the sheep, and it’ s a miserable death. Maggots can be treated with spray, but it is a terrible process and doesn’t always work.The alternative is to dock the tail on the young lamb. Docking the tail is only one important task to ensure the future health and happiness of the lamb.
Since we are docking the lambs of several hundred ewes at a time, it is quite a process with all hands on deck. We have a fairly narrow window–around two weeks to get around 6,000 lambs docked, healed and ready to trail with their moms. We have a portable set of corrals, which our crew moves to the next site at the end of each docking day. The corrals are set up in a funnel shape. Each bunch of ewes and lambs are herded into the wide part, which narrows to a series of pens. At the bottom of the funnel lies the lamb pen. In the pen behind, the lambs are plucked and set into the lamb pen, leaving behind a pen of only ewes. Our intrepid crew then forms an assembly line, with lamb carriers presenting the lambs to be earmarked, castrated if the right parts are there (we are using rubbers this year), vaccinated, the docked docked (again we are using rubbers), and finally, stamped with a paint brand. Each band has a unique brand–either a Ladder or a Banjo, depending on which summer grazing permit they are headed for–each in a distinct color. Next it’s the ewes’ turn to be stamped with a fresh paint brand and counted out the gate. The ewes and lambs “mother up” in the open pasture outside the pens.
Over the years, we have utilized various practices. For decades, the male lambs were castrated in the traditional way, with the shepherd snipping off the end of the sack, then drawing the testicles out with their teeth. They are in no way “biting” which actually wouldn’t work. In some ways this is the most humane method, because it’s “one and done.” With rubbers, the tight band cuts off the circulation, which is briefly more painful. In both cases, the wound is sprayed with fly spray, as is the tail area. In both cases, the lambs are soon running around, calling for their mothers. Each lamb receives a shot to guard against tetnus and “overeating” disease. The herder leaves them be for a few days, while watching for the ever-present predators.
By the third week in June, each bunch is staged for the trail to the National Forest grazing permits in Wyoming–the Medicine Bow, and Colorado–the Routt Forest. These trails take three days to ten days, depending on the distance to the permit.
Meghan and the crew bringing up the sheep
McCoy, Samuel and Anthony on the assembly line
German with Christina vaccinating
Another assembly line
McCoy and Maeve, ready for lunch
Counting out the ewes
Ladder Ranch
