Baa baa black sheep have you any wool?

Drench AND BE Drenched!

So, this weekend was the time for the annual sheep worming festivities. I call it festivities because is was an entertaining sight to observe. There were only three willing participants, Dad, Malcolm (my brother in law) and me. The planning started the night before, Friday, I believe. Outside it was raining cats and dogs, lightning flashing, thunder crashing. We're all over at Mom and Dad's enjoying some great company as one of my younger sisters is visiting with her husband and son from Montana. Her husband is the aforementioned, innocent and unsuspecting Malcolm. So, on with the story; as the rain is pouring outside, I hear out of the corner of my ear (kinda like seeing something out of the corner of your eye), Dad mentions something to Malcolm about de-worming the sheep in the morning. So, I redirect my attention to that conversation and I remark, "That's some good timing to wait till the sheep are all soggy from a heavy rain to de-worm them." Dad laughs. Malcolm wonders. I realize the reality of what is yet to come. It's gotta be done. The poor sheep aren't just soggy from rain, they got worms. I continue, "Are we planning on waiting till mid morning so the sheep can dry off a little bit? Not that it will make any difference."

Well, Saturday arrives, I'm all geared up. It's probably 8 to 9 in the morning. I see Dad and Malcolm herding the sheep into the coral and I head out to help. We get a few of them shooshed into the cattle tub and then into the alley way. The actual process of de-worming the sheep is referred to as "drenching". I've never researched the origin of that term. But, a short tube is inserted in the sheep's mouth and a small amount of liquid medicine is squirted at the back of their tongue so they can't spit it out. Must not taste that good. I haven't tried it so I can't vouch.

So, we have two small syringes with medicine in them. The syringe holds 30cc's. The lambs get 2.5cc's and the adults get 5cc's, unless they appear to be more sick, in which case they get a double dose. Oh yeah, the adults get marked on the back with a wax marker and the lambs all have to get an ear tag.

"AND THEY'RE OFF!!!"

So, Malcolm keeps the first group in the alley way while I proceed with capturing each animal with one hand with fingers in mouth to hold mouth open and other hand holding and inserting syringe to apply medicine. (Yes, my fingers are in the sheep's mouth, not mine). Then after medicine has been administered, I hand Dad syringe and take ear tagger in free hand while still holding sheep with other hand and clipping on the ear tag. Lambs like to jump when they get their ear pierced. So, I have to keep my head clear of their head so I don't get head butted and knocked out or something like that. So, we get through the first little batch of sheeps drenching, ear tagging and waxing.

Intermission, I have to describe the dimensions of the alley way, it's about 2.5 feet wide by 25 feet long and it holds about 15-20 sheep at a time. Yes, they tend to kind of crowd together in there. So, you must imagine, Malcolm is at the back of the alley keeping them from backing out, while I am crawling my way over and through the bunch advancing my way forward as I succeed in administering the treatments. Often getting squished between sheep and sheep and sheep and panels.

Now, back to the story; We get done with the first batch and run the next batch of critters into the alley way. At this point I notice a renegade band of yellow jacket wasps of some variety or another (I seem to be mildly to moderately allergic to ALL varieties of yellow jackets); So I go grab a can of wasp spray and proceed to declare war on the nest. I soak the nest and knock a few escapees out of the air for good measure. Then we are back on track. Malcolm was just loyally standing back there keeping the sheep from backing out while the irritated wasps were making kamikaze dive bomb threats all around his head. To his credit he kept his calm and didn't get stung, but he was very happy when I nailed their outpost.

While I was away getting the wasp spray, Malcolm took over administering the treatments. I came back and held up the alley way while he played doctor. I had my share of fun giving Malcolm a hard time; "Hey, Malcolm, the medicine goes in the mouth, not the nose". He was a good sport and laughed. We got through that gaggle and Malcolm took over the tail end job again while I continued with administering the goods. Or maybe it was just me feeling sorry for Malcolm having gotten into the thick of the sheep. Remember, it had rained a lot the night before. The sheep were very soggy and by this time so were we. I made a few jokes about how Malcolm's wife, my little sister, would have nothing to do with him when he was done with this chore, "You stink! Stay away from me." Those were the joking comments for the next few minutes. That's kind of how it is when you are working sheep. If I can't find a way to laugh my way through the process, they will just irritate me and I'll get angry. But this was fun having someone getting defiled with me! Haha. Malcolm suggested that he might be burning his clothes after this event and Shiela was out at the corals watching the show by then and laughingly assured him that it would wash out.

"POST LOG"

Eventually, we managed to doctor all of the animals and through the process, we were soaked through and through with everything hidden in the soggy wool, we were stepped on, kicked, licked, sneezed on, probably peed on, pooed on bitten, bled on...I guess that just about covers it all. I did take a picture of Malcolm at the tail end keeping a gaggle of sheep in the alley way for blackmail...I mean for posterity's sake, something like that, but unfortunately, I don't have my hardware with me today to download the photo, so that will have to wait till tonight when I get home. We survived and had lots of laughs through it all and the sheep are now much healthier as a result. The rest of us- one more priceless memory to share laughs with friends and family.
Have a great day and laugh lots!
James