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Moving
Soay Around
Soay
are intelligent, gentle and easy to move around if you take your time.
You
probably can't stand reading about gates one more time, but they are the key to
moving Soay fast and easy for you, and low stress for the sheep. The more gates
you have the easier your life will be. See our page on gates
for full details.
If
your Soay evade your grasp and somehow escape to an unfenced area - DON'T PANIC
- like I did :)
You
cannot catch a Soay if you chase it.
Soay
are easy to lead especially if you have them trained to recognize the sound of
treats in a bucket. Get some treats in a bucket, get a few feet in front of the
Soay and shake the bucket, leading them in the direction you want them to go.
- Stretch
temporary fences between pastures to move many sheep from field to field.
- Move
single sheep from one area to the other by closing them down into smaller and
smaller areas until you can easily close in on them and catch them, then put the
Soay into an extra large dog kennel on a wagon. Pull the wagon to the new area
and release your Soay.
- If
you are moving rams that have been with ewes into an area with rams that have
been housed with just other rams, spray them all down with a garden hose. Really
soak them well - so they all smell the same. The rams that had been with ewes
will smell like girls and the rams that were not used for breeding will go crazy.
Wetting them down will diminish the fighting. If it is too cold to wet them down
good, shut all the rams down into the smallest area that you can get them into
where all of the rams have room to lay down but not enough room to move around
much or back up to ram each other. Leave them "shut down" like this
for 3 - 4 days until they all smell like each other, when you turn them loose
they will probably still fight to establish dominance but it won't be the serious
"stomp you into dust" fighting.
- If
a Soay is outside the fenced area and you've tried coaxing with treats, leaving
a gate open to allow them to go back in on their own, and everything else you
can think of - try the garden hose. We had a ram out running the fields and could
not convince him by any means to return to the fenced pasture. Finally, out of
desperation, I tried "herding" him with the garden hose and it worked!
Soay don't like garden hoses, at least our Soay don't.
Move
slow, talk softly. |
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