And Now for Some Sheep!

This is an overview of our sheep.....  We bought 6 ewe lambs and 2 ram lambs of a special breed of sheep.  They come in all colors and are very hardy.  They do eat a LOT of grass and hay....much more than the goats.  They also travel through the pastures more than the goats.  When we got the sheep in 2011 they were very scared of people.  If they saw us they would run away unless it was feeding time.  They are still wary of other people and so far only let Kathrin pat them.

These are the ewe lambs when they first arrived.  We were still working on the barn so they had to listen a lot of noisy building and had people around all the time.

Here are the two handsome rams.....

The first lamb born we named "Fauna".  She was a very cute lamb and loved to be patted, unlike all the grown sheep.

This little lamb has just been born to a lovely butterscotch colored ewe named "Lisette".  He is learning to walk and is looking for his mother's udder so he can nurse.  His mother is licking him to wash him off.  We named him "Orcus".

Here are Lisette and Orcus now.....look how big Orcus has gotten in just 3 months!

This is Lorelei with her newborn ram lamb we named "Vulcan".

Like baby goats, lambs learn how to act by watching their mother.  Fauna is checking to make sure she's doing it right.

When the lambs were born we put them in smaller areas with just their mom to make sure they had time to bond without other sheep getting in the way.  After a few days we let them rejoin the flock.

Several of the sheep have gotten tamer.  One of the grown sheep now loves a lot of eye contact with me, lots of patting and she definitely loves to hear sweet words.  She lets me touch her face, ears, horns and pretty much everywhere.  It's pretty lovely.  Most of the 5 lambs from this year love to be patted by me also.  They still are wary of other people.

This is the lamb named "Fauna" and you can see how fast she's grown.  She's very sweet and runs up to me to be patted.

This is "Cupid", another one of this year's lambs.  He's gotten very big and just loves having me to scratch him on the top of his head.  His horns get in the way of him scratching his own itches.

Each morning I lead the sheep out to pasture and it feels like a parade.  One morning I took my camera and turned around to take this photo of them following me.

The sheep move around from pasture to pasture during the day and one of their areas is the edge of the forest where they clamber over the stone walls and hang out in the shade when it's too hot in the sun.  Remember, they have been growing a new wool coat since spring and they get hot pretty fast!