Stubborn sheep.  But they can change too.  One of this year’s bottle fed lamb’s personality really demonstrated independence.  He would often be in a different area of the paddock, then start crying his heart out not just for milk but for them to pay attention to him. Yet he was the one that missed his grain, since he kept looking for something better. The paddock has a flimsy wire barrier atop a rock wall, so if he jumped into the back, there was no return.  He would start yelling at the top of his voice long and loud. I could hear him from my condo.  I patched the hole in the barrier, but then he would do it again.  But that journey started when another lamb his age that I wrote about earlier this month.  She needed the grain but would not stay in the pen where the grain was fed.  He followed her over the rock wall barrier only a couple of times, and so she taught him to go off on his own. She had to be removed to another field, so that grain stopped for her. 

And now he’s changed. He realized his grain was coming from me.  His provision was always there but he needed to remain near his source.  

Ring any bells?  My life is being changed not by what I do, but who I remain close to. And now as I see my first love once again, my heart is excited and refreshed far more often. 

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This last lambing season, I ended up with four lambs that got rejected by their mom, or their mom died. Also, two additional rejected lambs showed up, and those were adopted by other mama ewes. Yet one of those adopted lambs fell behind, and it later revealed that the two-teat milk supply was on one side with abundant supply, with the other half barely producing. For just over one month, while the bottle lambs each received their daily five cups of milk replacer, I assumed this fifth one got enough from its adopted mom. But she wasn’t. Normally a lamb like her will not switch to eating from a bottle, but she was showing interest at bottle feeding time. To my surprise, she did like the taste of the milk replacer.

To feed the mama ewe, I moved her to new grass away from my expensive feed reserved for the bottle lambs. So the adoptive family went to our food forest pasture just behind the bottle-feeding area. In between them and the bottle lambs was a wooden panel, with a hole to allow lambs in to eat, but block the mama ewe from entering.

Now that it was time to stop feeding milk, I wanted this struggling baby to get more high-protein grain that I could only buy when I was in Hilo, nearly two hours away. The thief was her huge adoptive brother and he bullied everybody. So in trying to get her to eat grain, I would bring her in, and leave her with the other bottle-fed lambs, only to see her disappear in search of her not helpful “mom.” Try as she might, there was nearly no milk for her since her brother took the favored side each time. Each time I found and fixed her escape to the non-productive mom, she always pushed through somewhere else. First, it was holes created by the wild piglets, then she learned to push up the unfastened fence and go back. That was bad enough, but the most independent boy who got daily milk rations followed her actions. So both were not getting access to their grain rations.

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Willful and stubborn sheep polluting their land

200 hungry sheep and no sheepdog makes it crazy difficult to push them into their prepared paddock.  To safeguard their health and also from getting out onto the road they have to obey my voice.  But their heads are down, each doing their own thing.  The majority are not heeding my truck horn, the slap of the whip, or my voice.  This occurred after moving the water, the security cameras, unrolling 1000 feet of electric twine, setting up the posts, vaccinating all 80 plus lambs.  I’m so tired.  

I drive my truck across the pasture to herd them, they move only if the truck is about to bump into them, then drop their heads to the grass.  Others decide to trot off in every direction except into their safe enclosure.  I have to jump out of the truck, snap the whip/flag, but they wait until I’m gone and return to the just cleared area of their field.  An hour later the last renegade is inside and I can stop chasing them.

They cannot understand they polluted the pasture grass with their droppings, which holds tiny barberpole eggs. These hatch into larvae which crawl up to the top of their grass in as little as three days later.  At a certain tipping point these larvae will cause a lamb or a ewe to bleed to death if the infestation is too high.

To prevent this the electric fences divide the fields into a just grazed area and an area ready to receive mommas and babies onto grass not grazed for two months. This helps keep just hatched larvae from being ingested.  All to say that keeping their head down in the stolen grass will be their downfall unless the Shepherd persists in making provision for their safety.

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One individual sheep has no protection. Yet I witnessed a new momma sheep place her body between an intruder and her lamb.  Her just born lamb had no speed and she knew it.  She was willing to take the blows from any attacker even though she has no defenses like horses teeth or the ability to strike or kick. This momma reaction can be seen at the 10:30 mark on the Sheep Game vlog https://youtu.be/hJBrsTdoyHY?si=OdFB7hjG9EMdfFWp

Even though in the video the intruder was the shepherd, my own flock had a group reaction to their perceived danger.  In this case there were no just born lambs and even the youngest baby lamb will fly with their mother, twisting and turning as one unit, back to the safety of the flock’s huddle.  

We are not meant to be alone.  When danger or struggle comes, the correct place to run is to the Ultimate protector, and He designed us to be in units, like families and communities.  

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My sheep flock have split into two groups.  Those who trust me and those who don’t. For a week I attempted to move six escaped sheep back inside their paddock.  Guinea grass up to 12 feet tall and thick brush kept them concealed from my view.  They didn’t run, they just disappeared from my view and went their merry way. If I opened up the paddock, all the trusting sheep would follow me outside, and if I stopped giving them treats they would join the stray sheep in this escapade. I knew dogs could find and attack them or the escapees could be hit by a car.

That means as a shepherd I have to go after the stray sheep differently.  My voice is raised, I clap my hands, or if necessary rush at them to make them move.  I just purchased a whip with a flag at the end.  The whip’s noise and motion worked.  As a human shepherd I needed other helpers to keep sheep moving into their field.  God doesn’t need us to rescue people, yet he desires us to be involved.  Taking care of children, friends, or other loved ones means warning them of danger or perhaps passivity. Pressure applied for right reasons brings the errant ones back within God’s plan. My disobedient sheep needed that pressure and as humans so do we.

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Seeing sheep in pain galvanizes me to take action.  Thing is the sheep are very hard to catch.  They don’t know that I can give them pain killers, or an ointment that speeds their healing.  This month many lambs had bacteria invading the soles of their feet. Two weeks ago, I exhausted myself corralling lambs to spray bacteria inhibiting liquid onto their feet.  This treatment needs to be repeated for the bad cases or I turn to a stronger and more invasive method.

Why did Jesus wash feet?”  He declared to Peter “You shall have no part of me unless I wash your feet.” Peter instantly responded “wash all of me.” Jesus sees you like I as a shepherd see my sheep.  He is not ignoring the pain.  Jesus said to his disciples “…and you are clean though not all of you.” 

Shame, sin, wounds, the dirt of the world is on us.  We who are washed by faith still need Jesus’ touch to be fully clean like He did for his disciples in the upper room.  The Shepherd doesn’t wait for us to realize it, he is always wanting to minister.  Is he allowed to do it?

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The enormous belly on the third and pregnant ewe walking away makes me a bit concerned. Yes, sheep can have triplets, septuplets even, but my experience on poor pastures of Hawaii is that singles are the norm.

A set of live triplets will create a hierarchy, and the weakest one will be a runt. This is because their moms have only two teats. On poorer quality pasture, this runt is not likely to live. So I’m debating on spending more than $150 on milk replacer or finding time to create a separate paddock in Kona where I can feed that mom and she can feed the triplets.

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Yes that does look like a spaceship. And out of all the 90 sheep in the background, she came forward. Sheep can be greedy and keep looking for a handout. But then again she did come back!

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Today is a challenging day. I will teach for a little bit as a sheep farmer to 18 people. It’s an adventure, hands on experience to feed, move and medicate the sheep against internal parasites and tetanus. The grass greened up and it makes for a beautiful setting. I’m asking the Lord to make it a holistic experience, mental, physical and spiritual. The photos are of the students touring the ranch that day.

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