The sheep, like the alpacas, are still grazing. At the moment they have the luxury of the 4-acre field all to themselves but, as with the 3-acres, grass quality has dropped and so we have been giving them ad-lib hay. Whereas the alpacas will eat hay all year round (they need the extra roughage that hay provides), sheep will only eat it when they no longer have enough grass or the grass is less nutritionally valuable. It has really only been the last couple of weeks that the sheep have really started to eat the hay in earnest and even so, they get through far less than any of the other animals on the holding. The cows now eat almost a bale a day between them, the goats about a third and the alpacas perhaps a sixth each day. The sheep vary from none to a good third – it seems to be weather-related. Last night they ate loads, last night being a tad wet and windy.
We also have news about Muntjac(-the-lad). In the last month or so he has unfortunately become rather aggressive (he has caught Jack twice with deliberate head butts, once in the back of the legs…). It is so very difficult with rams: there is such a fine line between getting them 'tame' enough to handle and not so tame that they then become overly friendly and aggressive. Muntjac came to us halter trained but with a 'warning' that he could be a bit OTT when there was food around. He was pretty good at first but as the number of ewes he had left to mate with dwindled, so it seemed that his 'pushiness' with us grew. There have also been a few times when he has head butted one of his girls.
We talked to the original owner and for a while had him up for sale but with no takers, we have now made the decision to send him to the ‘freezer’. At two and a half he will provide us with mutton rather than lamb but should be tasty none-the-less!
It’s a bit sad BUT on our small amount of land and with all our different animal types, we cannot have an animal that is aggressive either to us or to other stock!