Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[frustratedearthmother]

Quick question - is Maisy actively keeping the sheep apart and out of their bedding area - OR - are the sheep choosing to stay away from her? I've noticed that since Cowboy is spending time with the bucks who are not accustomed to him that they CHOOSE not to seek him out for comfort like the does would do. It's not uncommon at all to see him curled up in the middle of a whole bunch of does when he's in the big barn in the pasture.

In the front pen, with the smaller barn where the bucks are now - he goes in the barn - they go out. Not HIS fault they haven't accepted him yet, lol! And I'll betcha if it were to start raining, they'd figure out that he's no threat and would readily get in the barn where he might be.

They have a reason not to love/trust Gracie - but they need to learn to trust Cowboy. Hoping in their own time they do.

Anyway - just thinking/wondering....

 

[Mike CHS]

Makes going to work every day for the past 40 years a cakewalk doesn't it?

@Baymule It really does. From Day 1 she has been the most lovable critter and no matter what she has a permanent place. I just came in from checking on them and I have no idea how the night went but the sheep are bedded down at one hay rack on the spent hay and Maisy is under her tarp on the fresh straw we put down yesterday.

@NH homesteader based on what the previous owners said she is probably around 18 months old now. She has been with sheep her whole life and was raised with her litter but has been on her own with sheep since probably 4 months old. They (the owners) brought home two Pyrs but the oldest one decided he wanted to be a house dog. We expected some training issues but they haven't been as bad as my posts probably make them sound. It is just that she seems perfect for a couple of days then she decides to play Hide & Seek with her doing all of the seeking. At least she isn't playing Lamb Lawn Polo anymore since they have gotten bigger.

 

[NH homesteader]

Lamb lawn polo hahaha! Ok not funny, but funny name.

I know, it always sounds worse than it is because we only post when something interesting (usually bad) happens.

Good point/question FEM. I hadn't thought of that!

 

[Mike CHS]

@frustratedearthmother there is no consistent actions with the sheep or Maisy. Maisy seems to be wanting to be with the sheep and usually they seem to accept her being with them. I didn't know it till a bit ago but Teresa saw Maisy chasing them last night late (I was asleep) so she got put up for the rest of the night. Maisy not Teresa

In her defense these sheep were not raised around dogs but they have been with dogs for close to a year at their previous home. They will gravitate to Maisy when she is calm but for whatever reason she decides she wants to play. Our pen is not the best place for that due to the numerous trees.

 

[Mike CHS]

This pifture is what we see about 99% of the time. We watch constantly and are never far away but we have not seen whatever trigger it is that turns her from watcher to chaser.

 

[Bruce]

I need to go back and read some of Bruce's posts about how he handled a rocky area since I need to do that to finish this paddock.

Not need, I'll tell you here:
I dug a lot of holes that were far wider than necessary so I could pull the rocks out Except this !#@$% one, had to dig 3 new holes since this was the hole for the gate post and I'd already dug the other two. This isn't the whole rock, just as much as I exposed before deciding there was no way I was getting it out.


And I had to concrete the NW corner post since it's location was not movable.

Maisy MIGHT have been seeing if the sheep wanted to play. Merlin did that once with the alpacas. Clearly in the forelegs down, butt up and tail wagging "let's play" stance, then jumping up. The boys didn't come to play and I never saw him do it again. I think she needs Merlin to play with

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I think she needs Merlin to play with

That's an awesome idea!

 

[Mike CHS]

I have no doubt she isn't burning enough energy so there is another dog in her/our future but we won't be having any young dogs again after this one. I have seen her do that stance but last night when Teresa went out to put an end to the chasing she was out of breath which meant it had been going on for awhile.

 

[CntryBoy777]

I've been thinking about that pic pretty much all day. I saw it this morning and it reminds me of an old cartoon we watched growing up....can't remember the name of it, but it had 2 GP in it...one named Fred, the other was George....and they would meet at the time clock to punch their card as they changed shifts. They were always pounding on a wolf trying to get sheep. I don't know if ya ever saw it, but I've been thinking about it today. Sure hope she gets past doing that soon for ya.

 

[Mike CHS]

It's too dark out to do it tonight but we may put one of our security cameras out there so we can see what is really going on. Maisy does the same "you wanna play" stances like Bruce said Merlin did but we never see her doing anything during the day. I may be totally wrong but there is a strong possibility (maybe wishful thinking) that Maisy may not truly be chasing the sheep. Whenever she sees something at the far end of the pen she will run at full speed to where she thinks the danger is. Because the pen is long but narrow she doesn't have a view of the other end but our hills gives her a 360 degree view of the properties around us. She will even alert to cows on the hills across from us and that's half a mile away.

We are going to cross our fingers and hope that we had misjudged her - she does get playful but I'm not seeing any evidence from the sheep that she has been messing with them. They aren't the least bit afraid of her - the 3-4 most skittish will still bound away but they will do that because of us if we move fast. They gravitate to where she is most of the day and other than the flock separation the other day we are seeing very little out of order. Still haven't figured that one out yet.

We ordered a tilt table from Sydell today. It has an optional wheel kit that makes it portable on concrete but we will be moving it with the front end loader in the pasture. The wheel kit will let us move it for storage on the porch of the shop. Folks are easy to work with and spend a lot of time telling us the pros/cons of what we were looking at. Thankfully we called them direct instead of going throught the COOP because the one we were going to order would not work for she as big as ours. They throw in a 10% discount for new business and ship $250 less than COOP.