What we didn’t know was that jugs come in really handy when it’s time for the vet inspections necessary in order for Soay sheep to travel across state lines or the US-Canada border.  Let me explain.

This morning Dr. Rebecca was scheduled to inspect a whole lot of sheep headed north, south and east from here over the next month (so far, not west, that would be Japan).  In preparation, we had marked all the sheep with color-coded electrical tape on their horns – a different set of colors for each customer.  At the last minute, we decided to try putting each group of ewes (the rams were still down in the west end) in a jug. We’re pretty fussy about making sure the right sheep go to the right customer!

Ewes about to go on a trip with Ron

Ewes heading north to Washington

You might think the ewes would get uncomfortable sharing such close quarters, but not our girls. As soon as we put a little hay in the jug feeders, away they went!

Chowing down before heading south to a new home

Can't you see I'm busy eating?

And my favorite photo, for anyone who thinks Soay sheep are too skittish. How’s this for a trusting look?

Oh, is it my turn to be inspected? Okay!

A note about these feeders: we used to feed our jugged ewes out of milk crates on the floor, but of course they kicked over the crates. We tried hanging feeders but the ewes managed to knock them over, too. Our jugs are 3.5′ x 5′ and there just isn’t room for a fulll-depth hanging feeder. What we came up with is what you see here, an angled wooden feeder securely anchored to the wall, with the front face made from scraps of 4×4 wire panel. They are sized to hold a flake of hay horizontally and we can fill them just by walking alongside the jugs; we don’t even need to disturb the ewes with their newborns.

For now …

You probably will not be surprised to learn that air-shipping Soay sheep these days is much more complicated than it used to be, when a breeder could just show up at the airport with an animal in a crate, buy the ticket, and go home.  Nowadays the paperwork, equipment, and timing are sufficiently complex to deter all but bull-headed or foolhardy breeders — like us — unless there is good reason, as there was for us this year.

Paperwork.  Livestock breeders who ship animals interstate are familiar with the 30-day health certificate required in almost all states.  That same health certificate is required for air travel, but it is valid for only 10 days.  Additional required documentation gets filled out either over the phone with the cargo agents, or at airport check-in.  You will need the predictable information about your animal — full name, gender, age, vaccination records, scrapie tag, name address and telephone number of the buyer — at hand both when you make the reservation and when you arrive at the airport.  Each major airline has a separate cargo division, and these are the folks you need to find first in order to learn their current rules and to make the reservation itself.

Assemble Team Soay.  Ask the cargo staff at the airline’s 800 number to put you in touch with a real person at both your airport and the receiving airport so you can confirm everything the cargo division people tell you and make sure everyone is on the same page.  For example, you want to be sure the sheep will not be stranded at the receiving airport because the plane arrived at 10:00pm but the cargo office at that particular airport has an earlier closing time.  Every airport has quirks in its procedures and policies and the people on the ground at each airport need to be your new best friends.

Equipment.   Each airline and each airport also has its own crate size requirements and they sometimes do not match the generalized statements on the airline’s website for cargo.  For example, most planes flying out of our small airport (Medford) are a particular brand of regional jet whose engines encroach on the cargo opening and severely narrow the choice of otherwise acceptable crate sizes.  If I had not talked to the person here in Medford, we would have showed up with two rams — one going to Pittsburgh and the other to Albany — in the “large” crates we were told by the 800 number (and the website) to buy, but which do not fit on our regional jets.

Airline crates large enough to hold a standing Soay sheep and small enough to fit the airlines’ size restrictions cost between $45 and $70 (variously called “intermediate” or “large”), plus the packet of labels and a water holder that clips on the side of the crate.  No self-respecting Soay sheep will drink out of this holder, but it does not matter.  You are required to have one and the animal will not hurt itself if it knocks the holder off its moorings.

Timing.  The 10-day limit on the health certificate would not be a problem if it were not also the case that the airlines available to us (United and Delta) will not take animal reservations more than 7 days in advance, which makes for a tight window when you factor in both parties’ schedules.  Everyone needs to exercise a lot of flexibility to make it work.

Another time constraint applies whenever one of the parties lives in a small community and the shipment is cross-country.  It takes three flights for us or one of our sheep to get anywhere east of Chicago, and the time change works against us because most cargo departments close by 9:00 or 10:00 at night, leaving no one to accept arriving animals after that.  The animal will be en route for a minimum of 8 hours with two plane changes.  That may sound like too much stress, but in fact it compares favorably with cross-country truck shipment.  On a truck, a cross-country trip takes at least several days, assuming the trucker makes the stops required to keep the animals watered and their rumens operating.  With air travel, the animal arrives the same day it leaves the seller’s farm, so the animals do not undergo the unavoidable stresses of multi-day travel.

We initially thought it was ridiculous when Delta demanded we arrive two hours early, but despite all our advance planning, the paperwork at check-in, including “luggage” tags for the crates, took about 45 minutes, so we were glad we heeded the airline’s caution.

More advantages to flying sheep.   Other than the possibility of one or two unknown animals on the plane with your animal, you avoid the contamination issues inherent in shipping on a truck full of other people’s animals.  For one animal going all the way across the country, flying was cheaper for our buyers than hiring a livestock truck hauler.

The downsides.  The disadvantages to air travel mirror the advantages.  The risk of lost “luggage” is the big downside.  There is no group discount or low “second and third” animal charges as there typically are on trucks.  Each animal is treated as a separate shipment, so shipping more than one animal will quickly turn the cost advantage upside down.  Roughly speaking, two animals probably can be air-shipped more cheaply than a cross-country truck, but that’s about it.

For us, and we suspect it would be for all sheep farmers, the other big disadvantages are the timing issues and the delivery of the animal to the airport.  In order to get the sheep to their new homes the same day, we have to book flights leaving our airport at 6:00 am, which means arriving for check-in at 4:00 am (by airline fiat), which means getting up at 2:30 to load the animals, grab a cup of coffee, and be on the road by 3:15am.  Yawn.

Air Soay can be fun.  When we shipped earlier this fall, the entire airport midnight shift was on hand to greet our two rams.  Apparently, when the rams’ paperwork arrived from Delta Cargo Corporate the day before, word got around that an unusual animal shipment was arriving that night.  To be sure, we often found ourselves saying “no, not goats, they are sheep” during the check-in process.  Nonetheless, the curiosity and enthusiasm of the airline employees and some of the passengers in line made for a more interesting check-in experience than we normally encounter when we leave the farm for “back east” visits.  For those of us who love these little sheep, showing them off in an unusual venue is just plain fun.

In the final analysis, what made the whole process a grand adventure rather than merely a burdensome human cost of doing business was the story associated with each ram.

Our Albany-based customers have a handsome flock of brown and tan and mahogany Soay sheep, but they wanted a black ram so they can play with more color genetics in their flock.  Here is little Blue Ribbon sporting his color-coded horn tape just before he left for his new home.

As living proof that sheep are none the worse for having flown Air Soay, here is Blue Ribbon in his new home, right in the thick of things vying for the yummiest blackberry vine with Melissa tempting her handsome tan and brown — and now black — Soay rams:

The other ram we shipped, as some of you may remember, was a surprise birthday present.  For us, acting as co-conspirators to make the surprise work was one of the most rewarding adventures we have had with our flock.  Let me set the stage.

Last July, we were minding our own business in the relative tranquility of summer, having never seriously entertained the notion of shipping a Soay sheep by air, when across the wires came the following e-mail:

I hope you will forgive me for e-mailing on my work account but I’m thinking of trying to surprise Candy for her birthday. It would be wonderful if I could get a new Soay ram here by the end of September.  What British Soay do you have available that are genetically suitable for adding to our small flock?  Do you think it’s feasible to get all this done including transportation (flying?) by September 28th?  I hope you might be able to help me pull this off.  Regards, Stuart

Who could resist this plea?  I certainly could not; I thrive on organizational challenges.  And thus began the six-week scramble to identify a ram lamb with different genetics than the east coast flocks of British Soay, pin down flight arrangements, run the schedule-balancing act, and accomplish the whole thing without spoiling the surprise by accidentally e-mailing or calling Stuart at home.

In the process, we not only learned how to ship Soay sheep, but more importantly, a handsome little ram, Saltmarsh Borwick, is now providing genetic diversity to a faraway  flock — a gift that will keep on giving.  We even got a history lesson from Stuart, himself British, about the little town in Lancashire for which Borwick is named:

Dear Priscilla and Steve, Borwick is an historic village and civil parish, first mentioned in the Doomsday Book. It is situated on the Lancashire/Cumbria border, about 8 miles north of Lancaster, on the Lancaster Canal. The civil parish also encompasses the hamlet of Tewitfield.  According to the 2001 census, population of 210. Borwick is a perfect base from which to explore the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and the coastal areas of Arnside and Silverdale, designated areas of outstanding natural beauty. The scenic Lancaster Canal runs through the village.

I don’t know about you, but I am ready to call British Airways and book my flight!

Here is master Borwick sporting his yellow and orange identifying horn tape, also about ready for his trip east.  Doesn’t he look like the proper young Brit about to depart for boarding school?

The caption on this picture of Borwick as he arrived in Pittsburgh tells it all:  “first glimpse!”

Pop quiz.  Is Candy happy with her new ram?

But not so fast.  Look who’s monopolizing Borwick right out of the crate.  Whose birthday was it, anyway?

And as if the pictures of the proud new owners were not enough thanks, a few weeks later a package arrived with matching Soay sheep sweatshirts for Steve and me — handstitched by Candy when she was not busy out admiring Borwick and her ewes.  Is this a great thank you gift or what?

If you are thinking about shipping Soay sheep by air, take a deep breath, take good notes, and take the leap.  It can be a great way to help diversify the North American-based Soay sheep population.

For now …

TAKING A SOAY SHEEP TO THE VET

Despite their legendary hardiness, Soay sheep occasionally need veterinary attention, and when they do, cost considerations mandate that if possible, we go to the vet’s office rather than having her come to the farm.  Steve and I can easily lift a single Soay sheep, in-crate, into the pickup and out again.  If I am not around, Steve heists the crate on the tractor forks.

Even better, the dog crate fits nicely into the garden cart, so if we have more than a few steps to go with the animal here on the farm, the cart becomes the taxi.  Here is Steve bringing Venus home in her cast after she broke her leg.

Among other advantages, crating the animal keeps it relatively immobile, whereas toting the sheep loose in the back end of the pickup in a drop-in stock rack allows the animal to be jostled around at a time when it is uncomfortable at best.  Hosing down a crate is also easier than cleaning the back end of a pickup.

MOVING SHEEP FROM ONE PASTURE AREA TO A DISTANT AREA

Because our pastures are aligned more or less in a long single row, we sometimes need to move sheep through other animals’ areas to get to a pasture several paddocks away, or to move single rams into breeding pens.  We could, of course, try to set up enough panels and Electronet to make a corridor through the neighboring groups’ territories, but that feels too much like work and not very reliable in any case.  Accidental breedings are not allowed on our farm and general chaos is something we try to avoid.  Here again, dog crates are a good solution.

Last summer, our ranch hand Shawn came up with a dandy contraption for moving large numbers of to-be-weaned lambs out of their mothers’ pasture.  Here it is:

I know what you are thinking:  “that’s the sorriest excuse for a triple-wide I’ve ever seen.”  Scoff if you will, but by golly the Saltmarsh Winnebago gets the job done.  Its frame is a single 2×6 plank, slightly longer than the combined width of the three-crate chassis.  In place of bolts, and to facilitate disassembly when we need a single crate, Shawn used red cargo (i.e., ratcheting) straps to lash the crates side by side on the frame.  Voilá – the Soay motor home.

In the next pictures, Steve and Shawn transport fifteen lambs in three crates, crowded quarters to be sure, but only for a few minutes.  Our niece Allison, a city girl from Pittsburgh, looks on in disbelief at the sight of all those lambs being hoisted up and over the fence.

Once the RV arrived in the lambs’ new home

and the disembarkment began, faithful Llucy, our guardian llama, kept tabs as her charges emerged from the crates.

Adults can be moved in the triple-wide as well.  When it comes time to set up breeding groups in October, Molly gathers the ewes from their various summer pastures,  we sort them, and Molly then herds them one group at a time to their assigned breeding areas.

Once the ewes settle in, we use the crates to bring the lucky breeding rams up from the Bull Pen to their assigned ewes.  Compared to the days of dragging those rams one at a time through several pastures to get to the breeding areas, it’s a breeze.

HAVE CRATE, WILL TRAVEL

Tales of shipping Soay sheep by air make the circuit of breeder legends from time to time.  We always thought it sounded way too complex to be feasible.  But last month we tried it and can report two things:  it does work, and it is a lot of work.  Logistics and cost considerations are for another post.  For now, simply enjoy watching Air Saltmarsh in action.

Here are two young rams loaded and ready to leave for the airport at 3:15 a.m.  I make no apologies for the funny “light” in the picture.

As you can imagine, the passengers behind us in line were none too pleased to have to wait for sheep to check in.  Their grumpiness, and the early hour, probably explain the look on Steve’s face.

After much fussing with labels and bills of lading, the rams joined the other luggage on the conveyor belt and were taken away, but not before a befuddled customer rushed up to us and said, “oh aren’t they cute; are they poodles?”

I do not want to leave you with the impression that life with crates is all work and no play.  One of these flights came about because an imaginative Soay shepherd in Pennsylvania wanted to surprise his wife with a new Soay ram for her birthday.  Talk about fun with logistics!  But that’s a story for another day and another post.

Bottom line:  there are as many ways to use your Soay RVs as your imagination can concoct.

For now …

On my way out to feed early one recent morning after a lovely big soft snowstorm — no wind, no drifts, just the fluffy stuff coming straight down — my eyes were greeted by all sorts of arresting scenery and it occurred to me that what we see, and our sheep see, on a wintery morning, is all part of the fascination in raising small livestock on a small acreage.  I hope you will enjoy these images of life in the country.

Corduroy comes in all colors, including “fence beige”

One of Steve’s dreams for our farm ever since we got serious about formal conservation breeding with our British Soay sheep has been to have breeding paddocks consolidated in one place.  He figured it would make chores more manageable, and our livestock guardian dog’s protection more effective, than having the breeding groups spread throughout the pastures.  And besides, he has had a hammer in his hand and a tool kit slung on his hip since he was a toddler, so there generally is no way to dissuade him from taking on yet another project, improving on the 4th generation of shelters, thinking up new ways to protect the mineral feeders from getting rained on — you get the idea.

This year, with the help of our trusty summer ranch hand Shawn, the breeding paddock dream came true.  I have never seen so many angles and Frank-Lloyd-Wright-like surfaces on a farm before, but I find them very pleasing to the eye.  Here is the Saltmarsh Sheraton, a four-star breeding hotel:

Let me know if you are interested in a detailed description of how these pens are put together.  On a flat surface, they actually would be quite manageable to construct.  On land as slopey as ours, that’s another matter.

Not everything at Saltmarsh Ranch is as meticulously constructed as the new breeding pens, nor as pleasing to the eye, but I thought you might smile at this picture of our sheep trailer, which I maintain must have started life as a circus wagon, parked in the snow next to our trusty old pickup Willie (as in Nelson), filled to the brim with snow-covered scrap metal, largely from the building project.  The angular trailer has its own story, but that’s for another day.

And last and most, here is the legendary Berci Box all decked out in its winter finery when it got caught out in the snow, with snags of snow hanging from the air holes on its side.

The Berci box has carried countless Soay sheep up and down the west coast, but one of its earliest and most notable uses was to carry Soay sheep into the U.S. from Athelstan, Quebec a decade ago, a story unto itself and a worthy tale for reading on a winter day.   If you don’t know Kathie Miller’s saga, I commend it to you.  It’s a great tale about legendary sheep (and their crate), and about Kathie, an even more legendary pioneering Soay sheep maven.

For now …

 ”When I first saw Venus out of the corner of my eye, I thought one of our ewes had lost her mind, standing on three legs, holding her back right leg straight behind her and shaking it furiously. Not until she paused momentarily did I see that her leg was broken between the hock and the dewclaw. When she shook her leg, her foot twirled around at a 180-degree angle, rather like a swivel club. This was not right. What to do.”

Once Steve was able to enclose Venus in the shelter, we quickly assessed whether we should try to save her, realizing the odds were not great of managing to keep her safely pregnant long enough to deliver, yet keenly aware of the likely expense of treatment. We will never know for sure what path we would have taken had she been an ordinary ewe, but Venus is carrying a genetically valuable lamb so we elected to try to save her.

These are hard questions, somewhat to our surprise. Soay are utterly endearing and we love having them, but when you start talking about x-rays and casts and more than 10 or 15 minutes of a vet’s time, the expense can swamp the value of the animal and then some. If we had only a few Soay, we might seek intensive vet care for every problem, but with over 100 sheep, we really have to be somewhat businesslike about prioritizing when and how much to spend on husbandry.

Off to the vet went Steve with Venus in a dog crate, the Soay shepherd’s one-animal “trailer.” An x-ray revealed a clean transverse break in the middle of her metatarsal bone. Back he came with Venus in a full-leg cast, complete with an artificial “hoof” made by daubing some quick-hardening epoxy-like stuff on the tip of the cast, complete with the two points characteristic of a real hoof. So far so good. But immediately upon landing back in the Maternity Ward, Venus began to flail again and banged the cast against anything she could find. Steve fashioned a small enclosure, about 4 x 5 feet, within the shelter using bales of straw. He gave her a bucket of water, some hay, and left her to heal. Here is the first recovery room.

As near as we can tell, Venus interpreted the pain in her leg, and perhaps the weight of the cast as well, as a predator attack. From the outset, she had tried to shake off what had “grabbed” her. Whatever her nightmares were, she managed to work the cast off overnight and we found her the next morning still in her little recovery room, but with her leg once again unset. The cast was intact but thrown off to the side of the enclosure. Either she had shaken it off, or wedged it somehow, giving her purchase, and pulled it off. It was back to the vet for another cast, this one under “warranty,” thank goodness. The vet sawed the cast in half, re-cemented it, applied it somewhat tighter than before, and sent her home with pain medication but no sedative since she is pregnant.

Steve’s nothing if not a quick learner, so as we drove to the vet the second time, he talked through a better confinement arrangement. Clearly it needed to be much smaller, about the size of the dog crate or even narrower if possible, to prevent Venus from having any room to swing her leg and kick off the cast again. The dog crate had two drawbacks, instability and the air vents on the sides, which could catch the artificial “hoof” points. But Steve remembered a piece of our Shaul panel system we use only occasionally, 2-foot wide contraptions called “alley supports” that form each end of a makeshift “lane” for moving animals between pens. Why not make the sheep world’s shortest lane?

And that’s exactly what he did. Using two 5-foot panels and the two alley supports, he got the enclosure down to about 2 x 5 feet. A single straw bale tipped on end brought the length down to just over three feet. A single scrap of 4 x 4 inch “horse” panel cut to size formed the “gate.” Three scraps of plywood covered the three sides of Shaul panels so there would be no slots where the cast could catch. Here’s what the new outpatient facility looks like.

All that remained was to get Venus out of the truck, out of the crate, and into the recovery room. The whole barnyard was concerned. Here’s Isaac, our Anatolian shepherd puppy, following the gurney (a.k.a. garden cart with dog crate – nice fit, eh?) into the Maternity Ward.

Here’s Venus with her cast. Woebegone, isn’t she?

Here’s Venus in her little stall.

And finally, here’s Llucy, ever the faithful guardian llama, checking on Venus to make sure her pillows have been fluffed and her bedpan, uh, make that water bucket, is in place.

It’s 48 hours later and the evening lamb check, which of course now includes Venus, confirmed that she made it through another day without kicking off the cast. We are hopeful. Stay tuned.

For now . . .