A long strange trip really is the only way to describe our fence journey. To quote the Big Lebowski – ‘lots of ins, lots of outs, lots of what-have-yous’.
We did A LOT of research about fencing before we decided on what kind would be appropriate for our sheep. The horses were pretty easy – we had lots of experience keeping horses contained (until Calypso the escape artist arrived). Sheep – no idea! After much research and conversations with experienced shepherds, we decided on New Zealand predator-proof fencing. Sounds great, right? Basically this fencing consists of many (7-9) strands of electrified smooth wire spaced at particular distances. We painstakingly built our fence during the hottest, driest time of year to prepare for the arrival of our starter flock.
In addition to fencing, we installed water lines and an adorable barn that could be split into two sections to house the ewes separate from the ram and wether. We felt so confident that we were ready for our flock!
The day had finally arrived! We drove to Whidbey Island, picked up our adorable lambs, and after a long day of driving we got home. We decided to leave the sheep in the horse trailer for the night since it was dark when we got home. As it turns out that was a very smart decision.
The next morning, eager to begin our sheep journey, we gleefully opened the horse trailer and let the lambs out into their pasture. A few things we hadn’t accounted for occurred in very quick succession. The sheep panicked, the extremely dry ground wasn’t conducting electricity, and they sheep went through our carefully built fence like it wasn’t even there. Four little black lambs loose on literally thousands of acres of farmland and forest. No fence to contain them and they RAN. Into the horse pasture they went, our lead mare tried to stomp them, they ran for their lives, I ran to put myself between them and her, chaos literally erupted.
Several hours of chasing them later, they were exhausted and overheated as were we. I decided to phone a friend and called in some backup in the form our neighbor shepherd. He arrived with some net fence and we managed to corral and convince the exhausted little lambs back into the horse trailer. I was devastated. What to do?