They've destroyed the house yard, pruned all the reasonable plants to nothingness, destroyed the chook yard fence, caused considerable damage to the chook house and drive the dogs nuts by jumping into the yard and staying just out of reach of the chained dogs!
So, Michael had a bright idea. By using the existing material down the eastern paddock, we could make a pen for them, keep them there for a few weeks and see if that would curb their jumping instincts.
Sunday morning, Michael spent an hour preparing this pen. The fencing material was already there, it was just a case of hooking up a chain to close the fence, bending the fence to ensure that it could support the weight of two pissed off sheep bumping into it. One side of the pen consists of the external fencing between our property and the neighbours. The other three sides was thick gauge wiring standing a metre tall (higher than the sheep).
When the pen was ready, I collected some oats in a green bucket and showed it to Ethel and Lulu ... and ran like the wind. They followed (of course). Penning them was easy, I walked inside, they followed. Michael shut the gate. Done. That was easy!!
Wrong!!!
Ethel jumped out within a minute, and Lulu followed less than 30seconds later. They cleared the fence with no problem!! Just like a pole vaulter.
As Michael pointed out, he will not be happy if we spend thousands on a decent house yard fence ... only to have it ruined by these two walking Lamb Roasts!! So, we may have to get rid of them. Whilst I don't think I could condemn them to the mobile butcher, I think I could be happy giving them away to someone as pets. If they don't associate a houseyard with food (like they do ours), they'd have no reason to jump the fence.
The decision to get rid of them was strengthened this morning when I discovered what they'd done to my vegie patch!
And the pen that Michael made - it makes a wonderful training off-leash area for the dogs.
1 comment:
That would be right
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