Cram-penned!

Although we finished the new sheep fold last night, it was too late to make the proper introductions before putting all four girls together. So we used the dog kennel panels to split the space and put Bella in with Valentine and Dinah and Rechel together. I figured the latter pair could sort out their differences exhibited earlier in the day without a fence between them to poke their noggins. When we left to go to the house, they were going at it. I could only hope they ended up with nothing worse than headaches.

This morning after doing chores, it was time for the Boulderneigh flock to learn to co-exist peacefully. At Lois' suggestion, their first opportunity to do this was in VERY close quarters. I used the dog kennel panels to create a narrow little pie-slice of a space -- a "cram pen."
In the photo that Lois sent me of ram-penning, her boys look like they are just standing there, so the amount of scrambling and rearing and twisting and climbing that my girls did was alarming. Afraid that someone would stick a slender leg through the chain link and then get pushed by someone else, I couldn't bear to leave them there for the "few hours" recommended. But it worked! After releasing them from their sardine can, I led them to pasture with their pans of alfalfa pellets. They seemed so relieved to have some personal space again that they hardly looked at each other. And whenever I checked on them the rest of the day, they looked like a stereotypically peaceful flock of sheep. (Perhaps the weather contributed. It was positively BALMY!) Tonight they came sproinging after me like good little sheepies, coming into the new quarters for their evening alfalfa pellets with scarcely any hesitation. Hurray!

That's it for now at . . .