Ram Pen

Well, looks like tight quarters to me---but this is roomy compared to how they slept last night. Yeah, I know it seems cruel but after being split apart for a couple months with their own harem of ladies---well....they hate each other. Actually they don't hate each other as much as they have a hierarchial "thing" to work out. A bit of blood was spilled before we got the pen small enough but by this afternoon they were out in the pasture doing pretty well together. After all day yesterday and last night without room to eat or drink---hay and water were pretty much the first thing on their mind when we let them out. The picture has hay in it but we had just squooshed them to that end to temporarily re confine them while we got the pen undone and moved them out of the barn. The oldest ram had cowed everyone by this morning so except for some small squabbles between the lesser rams in the pasture everything is fairly smooth. If two start to bicker for 2nd place it just brings the biggest ram running to beat the others up or chase them around, so everyone seems to be settling in to their new positions. All except the smallest/youngest ram---he has always known were he belonged :-)
By the time we leave out of town for Thanksgiving they will be doing fine together---which is the reason for putting them back together. We didn't want our helper to have to water 5 different pastures of animals while we were gone nor did we want to wait and try to put them together the day before we left (just in case you know). Now we are down to two pastures of animals. One for the ewes and the cows and one for the rams. Ahhh...life will be easier in the morning when I feed that is for sure. Unfortunately when we get back---Ike, our moorit spotted ram--goes in for "clean up" on anyone not bred. Which means we will either have to pen everyone together again so Ike doesn't get picked on for being in with the girls OR every day we will have to walk him over to the ewe pen, let him stay a few hours and then put him back for the rest of the day with the rams. The rams aren't quite that smart so sometimes they have trouble picking up on that trick bit I am unsure if my oldest ram will fall for this trick---so we will see how it works out. That will probably be the topic of a future post.