How to Catch a Sheep--At Least Sometimes

Raising sheep is such a quiet, bucolic past time. You feed them and make sure they have plenty of water. You sit back and enjoy watching them graze. Until you have to catch them--then sheep raising can turn into a circus, and you get to play the role of clown and lion-tamer simultaneously.

Sheep are mighty agile creatures, and, wow, are they fast. Mark has suggested we try to get a couple rams recruited as football half-backs. Both of us, along with some of our family and friends, have become exhausted and bruised catching sheep. I've taken a spectacular spill or two, as well.

 I have learned some sheep-catching techniques over the years, though I've not been successful with all of them. I tried one of the methods Ron Parker suggests in his book The Sheep Book (which is a great book, by the way, and is available free online). He says, "If sheep refuse to cooperate, grab them around the chest under the front legs. As they try to run away from you they will walk into an upright position on their rear legs. Then just sit them down. Don’t you lift them up—let them do it." (p. 42) Well, so far the only animal I've successfully used that technique on was Rousseau, our yellow Lab. He was certainly surprised at the result!

The best method I've found so far is to catch one of the sheep's back legs and pull it away from the ground. I can certainly understand how a good shepherd's crook would help to do this, since you have to get pretty close to the sheep to grab a leg, and sheep seem to be psychic when it comes to knowing which individual I'm after. I'm lucky if I can get within 10 feet of the sheep I need, although everyone else seems to be content to hang out with me.

Once I get hold of the back leg, I need to be careful to avoid being kicked. Even though the sheep is balancing on three hooves, it still has enough balance to kick out with the leg I'm grasping. At this point, if I need to do something quick, such as giving an injection, I grab the front leg on the same side of the sheep as the back leg I'm holding (this task is not as easy as that sentence makes it sound) and topple the sheep to the ground. I then lean and/or sit on it while giving the injection.

If I want to shear the sheep and therefore need to place it in the shearing stand, I keep hold of the captured back leg and back the sheep up into the shearing pen and onto the stand. The sheep is so intent on the process of hopping backwards on three legs, it doesn't fight me much, and I can usually get it to the shearing stand with little stress to it or me. Then I get to shear, but that's another story.

Ah, yes, the peaceful pastoral life of a shepherd.