Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for the master, one for the dame,

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

By special request from Deedee06, I am going to relate my sheep story. Disclaimer: this story is not for the faint of heart. It is a sad tale, but SO newbie-farmer that it is funny--in a sick sort of way. And perhaps other folks will think twice about "saving money" and just fork out what you need in order to do a good job with your livestock. Ah...but I digress...

Besides the ever-popular and low maintenance chickens, our first real farm animal was a pregnant sheep. Oh, I loved that ewe! I could hardly wait to get a little lamb to raise and eat and have tons of wool to spin. A candidate for Mother Earth News was I in those days! Well, our ewe delivered---quite without incident---one healthy black lamb. In time, we knew our baby would turn cream with black face and feet (a Suffolk), but for now he was all black and so cute!

We were not surprised to see the long tale on our lamb. We had read our sheep "bible" Raising Sheep the Modern Way and were prepared to dock it. One problem: we didn't have an elastrator to put the band on the tail, and it cost $20. We didn't have 20 free dollars floating around. We were poor. But good news! The sheep book explained how to do this the old farmers' way: with a knife and a string.

Yes, I bet you're cringing by now. But, girding up our loins and grabbing the lamb, the docking procedure was accomplished. Three days later, the lamb was still dripping blood from the stub. "Something is definitely wrong," I told my husband.

We finally decided to take our precious lamb to the vet. Yep. It cost $40 for the vet to clean up our mess and stitch up the lamb's tail. (But at least we didn't have to pay for a farm call!). That elastrator was looking better and better.

If that were the end of the story, it wouldn't be a sad story. It would be an expensive lesson, but with a happy ending. Alas, the story does not end there. About a week later (the lamb was 3 weeks old now), I went outdoors to check up on him and his mama, and I saw him "sleeping" on the patio slab. It was the "sleep of death" however. He was lying in a pool of his own blood. Apparently the stiches had broken open (mama cleaning him up?) and he bled to death. I cried and cried. My children said, "That's OK, mommy. We can get another lamb."

What kind of children was I raising? True farmers, I guess.

Oh, and the lamb? He was all bled out so...we ate him.

Moral of the story. Unless you are an old farmer, don't use old farmer methods on your livestock. Buy an elastrator. We did. We never had any trouble with docking lambs' tails after that (or with castration, either!).

Here is a picture of mama sheep getting a bath before shearing time. A different year from the first disaster, and frankly, I can't remember if this is even the same sheep. They all look alike to me, and we were crazy enough to "do" sheep more than once.