A Night Time Visitor Perhaps?

 

Made a very quick, just after dark trip into our neighboring little town last night just as the nasty cold rain started coming down. I had watched the remaining sheep go and bed down in the barn when the rain started through the window along with the goats getting into their condo and the chickens heading up the ramp into their little coop.

Everyone had been accounted for as it was getting dark.

I suppose a bit of a background fact needs mentioning here. Thursday as I was bring a wheel barrel full of hay to the ram's paddock I did notice some very odd scat right by his gate. To me it looked exactly like a pile of old horse manure that had been trampled on and spread out. This is very odd as it has been years since I have seen that and nothing I have ever seen coming from sheep ever comes to look like that and I know I never saw any fresh manure around here that looks like it would become that either.

I finally figured it has to be from the sheep and just dried in some way I have not seen before.

So I pull in the drive in the dark and the rain and immediately see 9 sheep butts huddled together right up against the gate in a knot. In the rain. My sheep do not like the rain. They have come to not care about the dark over the years. I imagine being a sheep in the Missouri Summers one would sometimes welcome the dark and I often find all of them out grazing in it but they do not tolerate rain for long and always retreat to the barn to wait it out.

After going in and pulling on my muck boots briefly deciding I wasn't taking a firearm out in the rain I went out to investigate. My driving in should have been enough to make all the old girls to turn and look at me in hopes of grain if nothing else but all they did was stare out into the hay field. My first thoughts were that perhaps Lilly the old deaf, mostly blind and easily lost ewe was disoriented and lost in the field or maybe coyotes were messing around out there.

Not once in all the years we have had sheep have I had anything attack a full grown sheep. I have had a very few lambs get picked off when they were born while I was at work or managed to get themselves out too far but it has been very few and we have not had lambs in years now anyway so I have not been closing the old retired girls we have left up in the barn lot at night. I have not seen a reason for it since closing the gate would not stop a predator if we had one and all we have left are 10 full grown old ladies with a few of them almost steer sized anyway who generally stay very close at night regardless.

Not to keep ya hanging... Nothing happened. The sheep continued to stare out into the field but I never saw anything and when I went around to the back Lilly was actually inside already bedded down and oblivious to the world around her. I woke her up just being there and she got excited thinking I was bringing her a treat. I went out and closed the gate and walked maybe 20 yards out into the field. If there were coyotes out there I never saw one and I figured my scent would be enough to keep away from the barn regardless. 

I was already soaked to the bone by this time.

I made it a point to head back in through the goat paddock and they were all holed up in their condo that has a second floor sleeping loft inside. The lead goat knew I was there and is always happy to see me so she came out even in the rain. Goats really hate rain. I watched her a bit and petted her because if there is so much as a stray puppy out there she will let me know fast. She never alerted on anything so I gave her an animal cracker and went inside.

Not sure what I have creeping around the place but I may have to go into higher alert mode and start buttoning up the place at night again. Maybe time to get the old FLIR binocular out and poke around some at night too.

As I said I have never had an issue with anything messing with full grown sheep. I keep the goats pretty solidly behind at least two fences at night and their condo is parked with a few feet of the house and chickens are solidly locked up. I still miss the old guard dog but we have been predator safe for years now so I am getting a bit lazy I guess.

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