24 November 2009

Shorn

So early last week I came down with what turned out to be one hell of a cold. Hit me hard enough Tuesday morning that by that night I realized I needed to call in sick for Wednesday night. No fever, but I was still pretty sure none of my coworkers wanted me to share it. I made it in for Friday night's shift and am much improved, but I'm still dealing with lingering effects of it. And on top of that, Tuck came down with pneumonia very suddenly Friday morning, though I caught it almost as soon as it broke and he's responded incredibly well to antibiotics.

Anyway, in the midst of all this, Paula was able to get in touch with a nearby shearer to come shear Angus and Shaun, but David really wanted to get photos of me holding the boys first so y'all could get a better idea of just how tiny they are. Here's Angus:

112209Angus_pre-shearing

And a pre-shorn Shaun:

112209Shaun_pre-shearing

If you embiggen, you can see all the weed seeds they'd picked up from being let into overgrown pasture that morning (not by me!). That should be fun to card out.

At any rate, the shearer arrived, started shearing away Shaun's belly fleece and made a slightly disappointing discovery. Whoever castrated him didn't make sure his testicles were in their proper place before placing the band, so he has no scrotum anymore, but his family jewels are tucked right up in his crotchular area. Poop.

And then we found the same had happened with Angus. Double poop.

So probably next week sometime I'll be doing a bit of surgery to rectify that situation. Fortunately, it shouldn't be terribly difficult, but it's one more thing I'd rather not have on my plate, either figuratively or literally. It does, at least, explain the head-butting issue.

Anyway, now they're even tinier and look like this:

112209Post-shearing01

And once they were all done and let back out into the pasture, they did what rams tend to do, especially when they're freshly shorn. They decided to figure out whether there was going to be a new king of the hill.

112209Post-shearing02

You'll notice Shaun doesn't look so brown anymore. If you didn't read my earlier post about it, his color is mooskit, which is primarily grey with brown fibers. Since this was their first shearing, he still had his baby coloring, but from now on he'll look more like these.

12 comments:

Java said...

Why did you shear them in late November? Will they be warm enough this winter? I worry about these things.

Somebody was a sloppy castrator. What a pain!

Chris said...

I was wondering how warm they would be, too!

Glad you're feeling better.

Mel said...

Just to stop the wondering, they'll have a nice layer of wool before the real cold sets in. Breeding flocks generally get shorn around February-ish before the ewes start lambing, and it's really, really cold then.

tornwordo said...

I love that scientific term - crotchular. I'm sure the upcoming surgury will make them quite crotchety ; )

Sara said...

They are freaking cute!

Yarndude said...

Man those things are adorable...

Meg said...

Sounds to me like someone took the easy way out to sterilise them is all. You push the testicles up into the body cavity to kill the sperm and band off the scrotum. It allows the testosterone to do it's thing without the pesky lamb issue. The head butting will probably not go away ... it is not prevalent in wethers but not uncommon either. Have fun!

Mel said...

Meg: Quite possibly, as they were intended to be freezer lambs, but it's far from a surefire birth control method. As for the butting, I'm fine if they want to do it amongst themselves, but we're working on the concept that it's not acceptable to do it with the humans. They do seem to be learning.

Michelle M. said...

I didn't realize the sheep were as small as they are until I saw the epics of you holding them. Very cute.

And my vocabulary has expanded: mooskit

Sheepish Annie said...

Nothing like a new 'do to make a sheepie feel like he can conquer the world. Or the nearest hill...

Glad you caught the bungled nip 'n tuck and that it's something you can take care of. Still a pain, though. Hope the boys handle it well!

that's J-O-S-H said...

So cute! I saw "Paula" and immediately thought about Paula Dean getting bashed in the face wiff ham. So funny [and mean]!

Lisa/knitnzu said...

Are you planning something special w/ their wool? Too bad about their jewels. Going to do something special with those too?