I think of all of our animals, the sheep and ducks may be the most set in their ways. We are shifting the sheep to a new stall to make it easier to clean in the winter - actually shifting half the sheep. The group generally separates out into two groups - one group of 3 sheep plus Zoom the goat and the other group with 5 sheep - when they come into the barn.
So the goal tonight was to move the group of 5 to the new stall. Easier said than done!
At first, we had Queezle down with us, though she was in the milk house most of the time. Queezle is not an ideal stock dog, as opposed to Hokey. The sheep don't trust her and the fact that she was in the barn, made them hesitant to split into their usual groups. It was not pretty.
Then Kate suggested we simply put them all back out, shut the door and go up to the house to feed all the dogs. We then came back down dogless and were able to separate them fairly well - though Abbie slipped into the 5 sheep group so we ended up with 3 and 6. Still not bad and now there is a group in the new big stall.
Sheep are characterized as being stupid, but when it comes to things that affect their survival, they are quite smart. They are excellent at reading the intentions of dogs and humans. Tomorrow I will use Hokey to help me - they trust him and work well with him.
Note, the lovely photo was taken in warm weather - we currently have snow and ice :)
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