What Did You DO Rosa???

What did you DO Rosa sheep?

I just finally went out and did evening chores...it took me awhile to talk myself into it, given that it is 33 degrees, windy and absolutely pouring rain outside. Basically the the worst kind of weather ever.

But nonetheless I geared up and trudged around, making sure nobody had to stand outside to eat and that everyone had warm, dry bedding. My last stop was our big shed where currently 2 horses and our four pregnant ewes reside. It’s been a symbiotic relationship this winter, the horses are jerks that carefully sort the leaves off their alfalfa and the sheep very helpfully dive in afterwards and clean up what is left. The shed is huge and everyone has been existing fat and happy there all winter...until tonight.

Tonight I found the two horses standing in the middle of their pen, soaked and shivering and visibly nervous. I was flabbergasted. It is truly awful out, nigh on dangerous from a hypothermia standpoint, and here were two normally comfort-seeking, reasonable horses standing in misery. Why?

I grabbed a grain bucket and attempted to get them to follow me to their warm, dry, shed full of hay. They tentatively followed but when we got within about 50 feet, they whirled and galloped back to their former post, quivering in both fear and cold. What the hell?

Now my danger sensors went on high alert. Horses, especially these two, don’t act like that without good reason. They were obviously petrified of SOMETHING in that shed. What could it be? Our Great Pyrenees had flaked out from her job guarding hours ago (she does all weather but cold rain) and was comfortably ensconsed on the porch so it was just me versus the big shed monster, whatever it may be.

I went to the shed, headlamp on high, cell phone flashlight in one hand and armed with a full grain bucket in the other. I admit, I was scared. Stray mountain lions aren't unheard of here. Rabid small varmints are also always a concern. And in the cold, pouring rain, ANYTHING might have taken shelter inside...even hobos. You never know when a stray hobo might just show up (or so my panicky brain was telling me).

I scoured the roof and outline of the shed first-Nothing. No cougars waiting to pounce from there, no hobo lurking around the corner. I then started at the far end, working my way in, looking for raccoons, coyotes, skunks--anything that was in there that did not belong. Nada.

I finally got to the part where the horses actually have access to and what did I find? The four sheep, which I had pretty much written off as also being shivering somewhere out in the pen, chewing their cud and blinking at me. Of course they immediately spotted the grain bucket and proceeded to mob me. But their unconcerned presence was reassuring--after all, they are prey animals too, if there was a scary predator in there, would they be this calm? I decided whatever had been so terrifying was now gone and that I just needed to show the horses it was all ok.

With that, I went back into the pouring (and don't fofget, super cold) rain with some baling twine and used it to create a make-shift halter to lead one of the horses back and to give them the grand tour of "ain't nothing here yo".I figured that was all they needed--a guiding hand to show them all was well. And once they saw their friends the sheep perfectly calm, all would be well.

Again, I was followed very tentatively, with the horse in question acting more like a kite on a string as we approached the shed door. We got maybe 5 feet inside when Rosa got up and her bell (which she always wears) rang and POOF, my horse-kite flew away. In seconds, both horses were back to their safe zone, shaking and full of rattling noses. It was then that it dawned on me that the terrifying predators were the sheep themselves.

Now our sheep are generally assholes, but so are our horses, so it never, ever occurred to me that Kas, a 16 hand Thoroughbred mare, could be bullied by a 140 pound ewe. And not just bullied, but to learn a fear so deep it kept her standing in bone-chilling rain rather than face down a 30 inch tall wooly bastard. Kas is the horse that has nearly killed our donkeys by endlessly chasing them, who has the 700 pound pigs (with tusks) terrified of her because she views them as "toys" and who was so unafraid of the smell of blood that she was nuzzling the chickens we were butchering next to her pen this fall. The catch word for Kas has always been "bombproof". But Rosa and her clan did something tonight that broke her psyche.

And so it was that I had to lead the sheep to the red barn- again, in the absolutely freezing, pouring rain--so that the horses could resume their lives and keep themselves from dying in the cold. They happily followed me--a merry line of slightly damp ladies chatting amongst themselves about this fun little outing they were having and periodically trying to tackle me like an NFL lineman in an effort to recover the grain bucket from my hands. Rosa, in particular, was very smug when I put her into the stall and instantly began mugging for more treats.

Was this her plan all along? Terrify the horses so as to be removed from their pen and then set up shop in the main barn where she can harass me twice daily into giving her treats while I am trying to get chore done?

We may never know. But for now the terrifying sheep-lions are happily munching hay in their private box stall and god-willing, the idiot horses have figured out that their barn is no longer haunted by sheep and they can go warm up. Come morning, I will have to figure who goes where for the rest of winter but for now, I need some hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket to get the chill out of my bones!