(06-08-2015, 01:32 PM)Catherine Wrote: Surely there are better ways of dealing with a sheep than chasing it to the point of exhaustion. Could he have offered a treat that would attract the sheep?Yes, that is exactly what we do. It is so easy! I call out to them, rattle a bucket with some granulated food (which they adore) and they came stampeding into the yard. I then close the yard gate if any treatments are necessary. It is easy to catch them once in the restricted space of the yard. (BTW for American and Canadian readers, I am using the word "yard" in the European sense, of a small enclosed bare area, not a back garden!).
There is absolutely no need to chase ewes. That is extremely stressful for them, indeed for all sheep, and they can even die from extreme stress. The trouble is, farmers are always in a hurry, wanting to make money, so they won't spend any time training sheep to come to them. They would prefer to spend lots of money buying a quad vehicle and run around chasing sheep to exhaustion in order to administer a treatment!
Not all farmers are like that. A long while ago on "Countryfile" - I rarely watch TV - I saw the presenter (Adam Henson, I think) rattle a bucket in an open field and his sheep came to him. But of course he is a sheep specialist and keeps rare breeds, if I remember correctly.
By the way, there is a special technique for getting alpacas into the yard, quite different from sheep. Once again, no need for quad bikes! We get a very, very long piece of rope and gradually, very slowly, move them towards the yard entrance. Alpacas do not challenge boundaries (whereas a sheep would just run under the rope!), so they just move away from the rope and in the desired direction.
However, recently when they see the rope we hardly need to bother. They know that we want them to go in the yard and once we approach the gate they go in without any more prompting. They know they will get a treat once inside! I suspect that soon they will come in the yard with our simply rattling the bucket, and the rope can be stored away.
