Settling In

Tomorrow, the sheep will have been here for one month. It's weird how that time seemed to go by so fast and yet, at the same time, it sort of feels like the sheep have been here for a lot longer. They're just such a regular part of my day now, that it doesn't seem like it's only been 30 days.

It's been an adjustment, for sure. The first week I felt pretty panicky. Every little different thing about them would send me to my sheep books or the Internet, wondering if a ewe was showing the first signs of sickness. I've calmed down considerably now, but I'm still so new that I do always wonder what this or that means.

But I'm having so much fun watching the girls each day, and I'm starting to get a feel for each ewe's personality.

Jasmine seems to be the leader. She's the oldest, and she likes to boss the other girls around. I've seen her ram the other girls in the side, dole out death stares, and other posturing. She's the first one to approach me for grain, the first one at the hay feeder or mineral bin, the first one in or out of the barn.

Dorrie is very sweet and a total chowhound. She's right at Jasmine's heels during grain time, and she'll sideswipe the other girls out of her way to get to it. She likes to put her hooves on top of the hay feeder to get at the tastiest bits. She'll often put her hooves up on the pen railing too if I'm standing on the other side. Wondering if I have any grain, probably!

Daisy is also very sweet. She was the first ewe to ever approach me fully, is always the first to start chewing her cud again when I'm around (a sign that she's feeling comfortable and unthreatened), and was the first ewe to let me touch her. She'll let me scratch her chin a little bit while she eats grain out of my hand. She also gets this super silly, blissful expression on her face while she chews her cud. She raises her head a little bit and half-closes her eyes. It's very funny.

I'm still getting a feel for Dawn. She's very shy, and possibly a bit cantankerous. She almost always stamps her foot at me when I'm in her pen, which is soay for "back off, lady." She still will not take grain out of my hand like the other three will and spooks quite easily if I so much as shift my weight from one foot to the other. I don't have many decent photos of her, as she almost always turns her back to me or hides behind one of the other ewes. Except for when I don't have a camera with me, of course. Maybe she's camera shy!

Sheep are great noticers. They notice and respond to pretty much everything in their environment. No matter how quiet I think I'm being, no matter how slowly I'm moving, they notice. If I'm sitting in their pen and slowly, soooo slowly shift a foot or move my head, they know and instantly turn to watch me. The first time I wore a hat, or a hoodie over my t-shirt, they were warier than usual. Their previous owner told me sheep will even notice if I wear shorts instead of trousers or sunglasses instead of regular ones. As vulnerable prey animals, sheep have to be great at noticing changes to their environment and assessing potential threats. It's what keeps them alive. At the first sign of any potential danger (which is pretty much anything unknown to them), they hightail it to their pen in the barn.

The girls swivel their ears constantly to take in every sound--from birds to traffic to an acorn hitting the barn's metal roof. They know when I'm coming into the barn to let them into the pasture, to give them grain, or to just watch them, and they respond differently depending on each situation.

I always thought having sheep would be a bit noisy. We hear the neighbor's sheep and goats all the time. But so far, my girls are silent. I've only heard them baa twice; each time it was Jasmine, signalling distress because the other 3 ewes had gotten out of their temporary enclosure the first week on pasture and left her behind.

Much, much more to learn! I'm very interested to see how the ewes will respond to the alpaca when they arrive this weekend. They will have separate pens in the barn, but I'm hoping to pasture them together. At least until next year when I know more about their grazing patterns and can put up some cross-fencing for rotational grazing.