It occurred to me that not everyone knows how to catch (and immobilise) a sheep. Here’s a tutorial, just in case you are ever confronted with a rogue sheep careening through an agricultural show.
Catching a healthy sheep in the paddock is an art form, and one neither I nor any of my dogs have mastered. About the only time you really need to catch a sheep is if they have been struck by fly. The Australian sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina, lays its eggs in damp wool, and the resulting maggots attack the the skin of the sheep, causing irritation, infection, and, if not treated, death. Prevention is through crutching (cleaning the stained wool from the breech) and chemical deterrents. For struck sheep, treatment involves catching them, removing the affected wool and treating the wound with antiseptic and deterrent chemicals (to prevent a new strike on the open wound).
Far from being slowed down by a mild case of fly strike, the sheep tend to be irritable (itchy) and also may be feeling more vulnerable to predators. The combination makes them quite skittish. And as soon as the sheep figures out you’re chasing it, specifically, it starts dodging and weaving through the mob.
The general technique is to get the mob into a corner so they can’t just take off at a gallop, then try to quietly sneak up and grab a back leg with both hands. Trust me, you really do need to be holding on with both hands, because even with only three feet on the ground, the sheep has a lot of traction. This stage can look excruciatingly funny to an observer as you and the sheep spin in circles with your arms at full extension.
At this point, assuming you’ve been sneaky enough, quick enough, and flexible enough to run bent over (in order to catch the hock), you face the next major hurdle—getting the sheep down onto the ground. The conventional way of doing this is to grab its head, turning it sideways around into the sheep’s flank, while simultaneously exerting pressure on the sheep’s bum to get it to sit.
I can report that this harder than it sounds. For one thing, you don’t have a spare hand to grab the head at this point without risking the sheep pulling its leg clean away and galloping off. Second, they just don’t want to sit. I have been known to simply fall across the sheep, effectively pinning them to the wrestling mat, then awkwardly getting us both up into sitting position. Happily for me, the only observers tend to be my dogs.
Once you have the sheep on its bum, between your legs, you can immobilise it with ‘sheep cuffs’—yes, handcuffs for sheep, holding the two front legs and one back leg safely and firmly in what looks like an elongated carabiner. I usually add a loosely tied bit of line around as well, just in case the carabiner latch opens.
Phew!
NOW you can let go of the sheep and collect up your gear for treating the affected area: rubber gloves, scissors and wound dressing—antiseptic and flystrike preventative. Bent over like a shearer, you work your way around the breech, trimming the affected wool back to a clean 2 cm margin, and once you’re sure you’ve found all the maggots in their ‘runners’ under the wool, treat with the wound dressing. Check the ear tag number, put a green ring on the tag to identify this as a possible repeat offender, and then you can remove the bit of line and sheep cuff and let the sheep go. Oh, and then, clean up the discarded wool and maggots, to break the life cycle of lucilia, which moves between soil and sheep. You use a black plastic bag for this, and leave it in the sun for a couple of days to kill the maggots.
If you take a look at my most recent Yarns from the Farm, Shoshin: Wisdom of the Beginner’s Mind, you’ll find a description of why I’ve made the decision not to catch sheep in the paddock any more. Period. Or maybe this description is reason enough!