Herding Training

Lately we have needed to move the flock of sheep more than in the past. We are trying to keep them off our first pasture as much as possible so that it doesn't get over grazed. We are also gathering them every week for health checks. Since the weather has started to warm, we have also been moving them into the backyard a few days a week so that they can act as living lawn mowers and enjoy the benefits of our very varied grass back there.

Rialey has always shown a very natural ability to move the flock. The problem is often that where she would like to move them and where we would like her to move them are totally different places. The last couple of weeks, I have started to make an effort to really dial in her herding training so that we can better communicate out there.

The other thing the girl needs to learn is to just slow down! I thought surely when she reached 2 years old she would mature out of the puppy brain phase and start acting like an adult. Nope. Half the time when she's working she is a jumbo bag of mixed nuts, running and barking and trying to do everything we ask before we ask it and at TOP SPEED! Whhheeee!!!

The fault here lies with my training, not with my over zealous, very driven working dog. I haven't taken the time to show her what to do and reward when she is doing things at a moderate pace. Instead we often find ourselves waiting until she has done something in a totally wild fashion and then yelling. This does no one any good.

Recently, I worked out a deal with a local trainer to trade a couple of our turkeys for a herding lesson. She was able to give me some great tips on reading Rialey's body language and getting the kind of performance I want without all the yelling and pushing.

Today, I decided to put some of her suggestions into practice so we went out to collect the sheep in the back pasture. It took a few tries, but eventually we moved the whole flock into the goat yard where armed with a clicker and some delicious treats (smokey bacon cheddar!), I rewarded Rialey for being calm, moving slowly, and getting around and behind her sheep. Thankfully, the sheep have finally grown out of the habit of trying to commit suicide by throwing themselves at the fence any time a dog moves anywhere near them! We moved the flock from one pen to the other and back again a few times then we decided to move the group into the backyard to graze for the day.

Our first attempt at moving from one yard to the other did not go so well. Unsure what I wanted, Rialey flanked around and ended up moving the sheep in the opposite direction and by a roundabout route then ended up back where we'd started. This time I got in front of the flock and just told Rialey to wait as I walked confidently in front of the group, out the gate, and across the pasture.

There was this beautiful moment when I looked over my shoulder and there spread out behind me trotting calmly was the entire flock of sheep. Bringing up the rear at a respectable distance was Rialey. She was WALKING behind the sheep. Keeping her shepherd's eye on all the young lambs to make sure they stayed with the group and calmly encouraging the whole flock to take my lead. Once the sheep saw the open backyard gate and the lush greens that awaited them, they all rushed through and Rialey to her credit slowed to a stop and waited for every last ewe and lamb to find their way through the small gate.

Gate shut, I turned around and had a huge party with my good girl, complete with a whole handful of smokey bacon cheddar!

Our not so lucky Clover

  Right now we are keeping the boy and girl goats separated so we alternate who gets access to the big pastures in the back. This morning it was the girls' turn so I grabbed scoop of corn and called the girls and Rialey to follow me across the bridge. Once Rialey and I had all the lady goats, I closed the gate and tossed the corn. Rialey knows the drill by now and was ready when the sheep came flooding over the hill to try and steal the goat ladies' breakfast. She chased them back over the hill, across the second pasture, then up and through the gate to the third pasture then headed back to my side.

  On a whim I decided to take a walk out to the third pasture to check on things. Rialey did her usual happy lap around the second pasture then bounded through the gate and into the third ahead of me. She was running and sniffing and generally enjoying being a farm dog. She ran over to the ponds. On hot days she likes to take a plunge and cool off, but this morning the frost had just melted from the grass so I was surprised when she dove out of site down to the water in the first pond. Oh well, she's never been bothered by the cold so I let her do her thing while I continued my walk.

  Pretty quickly I realized something wasn't quite right. I could see the big, poofy fluff of her curled tail sticking up above the brush, and it was vibrating like she was trying to catch something. Concerned that maybe she'd tried to take on a snake or other vermin, I headed over to find Rialey trying her best to grab and pull something up and out of the water. On closer inspection I realized it was Clover, one of our lambs. Clover was one of a set of twins born on Saint Patrick's day. She and her sister, Coleen, never did get very big and seemed always to need deworming. I guess when the flock rounded the corner by the edge of the pond little Clover got knocked in.

I told Rialey to back up then pulled the lamb out of the water. She was a soggy, muddy mess! She felt very warm and was breathing heavily like she had been running so I knew she hadn't been in the water very long.

 Rialey immediately set to work licking the sodden, pathetic creature and pulling the debris from her coat. The she started trying to get Clover up by grabbing big mouthfuls of her wool and attempting to pull her to her feet. I knew that Rialey's attentions weren't go to work so I called her off and put her in a down stay a few feet away. Once a lamb goes down, they will just lay there and seemingly wait for death. No amount of poking, prodding, or pulling will get them to their feet. The best thing to do is back off and usually the little one will get up on her own once she thinks the danger has passed.

The rest of the flock were not to far away so Rialey and I left Clover to warm up and dry in a sunny spot while we went back to finish chores.

  Halfway thru morning chores I decided it might be a good idea to give the weakened, stressed out, lamb a little energy boost so I mixed up some molasses and vitamins and headed back out. I was encouraged to see that Clover was no longer in the spot where we left her, but when I called over the flock she was not with the group.

  We backtracked to where we left the lamb, and I asked Rialey to 'hunt it up.' She took off like a shot following a scent trail! I was so excited that she seemed to be on the right track until Ry dropped face first to the ground and started rolling in some god-know-what smelly patch that she was delighted to have found.

  Eventually we made our way to where the flock was grazing and again I asked Rialey to search for the lamb. Don't ya know, she actually found the little one laying down in a tall stand of grass not far away!

  I gave her a couple syringe fulls of my mixture and moved her into a more accessible and sunny location. We left her again to recover and hopefully get back on her feet.

  I had Rialey move the flock back to the pasture near where we left the little one to encourage her to rejoin the group then we headed back up front to finish chores. We let the boy goats out of their pen, fed the rabbits, and released the poultry to free range for the day. Once everyone was taken care of, we headed back one more time to check on miss Clover.

  Once again she had moved from where we left her. This time Rialey knew just what to do. I asked her to find the lamb, and she dropped her nose and started very obviously following her tracks. Though the tall grass, across the pasture and back up again, Rialey never lost her trail. Every once in a while she would throw a glance back in my direction like. "Well? Are you coming?!" When I saw her fluff of a tail stop in the tall grass and her head pop up to look back at me, I knew she'd found Clover for me again!

 The lamb was looking a little more alert, so we decided to leave her for the day to warm up and get her strength back. Obviously she was able to get up and move around so I suspected that she would be fine.

  This afternoon we went out for one more check on our errant lamb. I put Rialey in a down stay and called over the flock. Unfortunately, little Clover was not with the group. I called my trusty farm dog and we once again set to work finding the lamb. Rialey dutifully checked every place we'd found Clover this morning before dropping her nose and starting to search. I was about to give up hope when I saw the pup give two giant leaps into the chest high grass then I heard her give a loud "WOOF!"

  I bounded through the grass to find that sure enough she'd once again found that lamb! I gave Rialey tons of praise and a handful of treats. Clover was just laying there while Rialey did her damnedest to get her up. At least at this point she was mostly dry and holding her head up and looking around. I called Rialey off and stood there trying to decide what to do now. Was she so weak that she could only get up and stumble around then fall again? Should I bring her up front so that we could watch her more closely? She was way too heavy for me to carry all the way back up front. On the way out I'd noticed that some evil animal had disconnected the fuel line from the four wheeler...again so that wasn't an option. While I stood there contemplating dragging the garden cart all the way back there and looking out over the field, wouldn't you know that lamb popped up and took off at a run across the pasture!

  Guess she wasn't that weak after all! Rialey and I kept our distance, but I let the dog gently herd the lamb back up to where I knew we'd left the rest of the flock. She is that tiny dot in the above picture rejoining the group. Hopefully she is finally recovered from her ordeal of the day, and we won't have to do any more lamb tracking.

  I am thankful every day that I have an awesome farm dog at my side whenever I step foot on out the farm. Without this dog, that lamb would surely have died in that pond and there was no way I would have found her over and over again hiding in the brush. Today Rialey showed the skills that make English Shepherds such indispensable farm assistants. She went from herding sheep, to caring for a lamb in danger, to tracking her when she was missing. That's my good girl!

It's Turkey Time!

It's that time of year again. Time for turkey! This year we decided not to buy any birds from the commercial hatcheries, but to just raise birds hatched here on the farm from our breeding flock of Bourbon Reds.

We had the incubator cooking all spring and summer and basically hatched out every egg our small flock produced. I couldn't tell you exactly how many little poults we produced, but we had hatchings every few weeks. We sold many of the little birds locally then at some point stopped selling them and started growing them out for Thanksgiving. We started out with at least 60 birds. Unfortunately, we had a terrible year for predators. We had the dog attack, but before and after we had hawks, possums, and foxes all wreaking havoc on our flocks. At this point we have about 30 birds that will be going off to the processors tomorrow.

 

We really like raising the Bourbon Reds. They seem to be very hardy birds who enjoy ranging and foraging in our pastures. They are a little more standoffish than the broad breasted whites, who will mob you and knock you down for food, but friendly enough to be easy to handle and put away at night.

  Rialey has progressed so much in her herding training this year and does a great job of keeping the birds from being underfoot or getting too pushy with us...though she could probably stand to move them with a little less...enthusiasm.

Tomorrow morning we will be loading the birds up and transporting them to the USDA processor who just so happens to be in the next town over. This makes us very happy as less travel time means less stress for the birds.

At this time, we still have a few birds available if anyone local is looking to add a locally, ethically raised bird to their Thanksgiving table. Email us at orders@hightailfarms.com if you would like to get on the list!

Hope everyone has a happy turkey day!

Rialey on Sheep

 It's been a cold, wet winter and our pastures are not the greatest. I've been trying to get the sheep in the backyard occasionally so that they can munch on the weeds and clover that tend to grow back there. Plus, free lawn fertilizer!

   I decided to take advantage of the flock being in a closed space to work the new puppy, Rialey, on sheep.

   I put a harness and a long line on the girl to keep things from getting too out of hand.

   At her age, we are working on very simple things. Walking up to the sheep to get them moving, walking behind them, and calling off the flock and back to me. Rialey got lots of praise and treats for doing all these things calmly.

 We also worked a bit on learning to go around the flock to turn them back toward me. Again, the emphasis was on calm and confident movement.

  Rialey even had to face off against an angry Maggie who decided she needed to defend her lamb against the new wolf cub. I was ready to swoop in and defend my youngster, but Rialey faced down that angry ewe with a couple of her deep, growly woofs and that momma turned tail and got back in the flock!

Rialey vs the Ducks

 Rialey has been settling in on the farm nicely so we decided it was high time to see what this herding dog was made of. I set up a small, circular pet and carefully picked out a nice group of young Pekins.

 But try as I might, I could not interest that little girl in herding those ducks. I tried cheering. I tried begging. I even tried running after them myself, but Rialey just didn't see the point in chasing those quacking, flapping white things. Live and let live.

 Finally, I remembered that English Shepherd are said to learn by watching, so I had the brilliant idea of inviting Luna into the pen to show the new kid how it's done.

Well, it was like someone flipped a switch. Rialey said, "What?! I get to chase them?!" and it was on.

 She bark, she bounced, she bit her some ducks.

 Eventually, she settled down a little and started moving the ducks.

 Ok, maybe she didn't settle down that much.

 Since she had the basic idea, I put the leash back on...

 and showed her how to calmly walk behind the ducks which she said was not nearly as fun!

Overall, the girl did great and got lots of praise and treats for her hard work.

Here's a video of the action that the Big Onion was kind enough to take with my fancy new video taking camera. Enjoy!

Underwater duck herding

  We have been having a problem with the ducks getting into the creek that crosses our property for quite a while now. We even tried putting up a fence to keep them out, but the holes in the fencing were big enough for the determined little waterfowl to slip through. Lately they have taken up the habit of swimming up the creek and getting into our neighbor's yard. It's not far from there to the very busy road in front of our houses so last weekend Big Onion put up a second layer of chicken wire in front of the existing fence.

  This seemed to work like a charm. All was going well until a couple of nights ago when we were putting the birds away for the night, and Big Onion noticed a couple chickens on the wrong side of the fence unable to come back thru. He went over to investigate and found not only the two Buff Orpingtons pacing the fence line but also about 7 ducks happily swimming back and forth in the creek. Apparently these birds had crossed the bridge and gone down to the creek from the other side. We knew from experience that if we left those birds out overnight, all we would find of them the next morning would be a pile of feathers.

  It was getting dark fast so I called over Luna, my right hand dog, and the three of us swung into action! Big Onion turned off the electric line that run over the top of the fence. I picked up Luna and tossed her over the fence (thank heavens for farm dogs in small packages) and hopped over it right behind her.

  First order of business was the two chickens. Luna employed a very handy skill the two of us recently discovered and took no time in herding each chicken right into my hands. I handed them over the fence to Big Onion and then the fun really began.

Underwater Chicken Chasing

I hear people say it all the time. "My dog hates getting wet." "My dog won't step in the mud." "My puppy just can't go out when it's raining." Those dogs wouldn't last five minutes around here!

It ain't pretty, and it ain't clean, but that's life around here these days.

On my weekly trip to the feed store today they were talking about the weather. About how it was going to storm and hail, and we might even have some tornadoes. I rushed home to put away the few hundreds of pounds of feed I'd picked up and start doing evening chores a little early.

Sure enough, I'd just gotten started tucking away the silkies and calling in the guineas when the sky opened up. The ducks started running around like fools, and the chickens ran for covered anywhere they could find it which for a lot of them was not a safe place to spend the night.

Thankfully, I'd brought my right-hand dog out to help with chores.

Tonight, with a lot of encouragement from me, Luna finally figured out how to move chickens. It finally clicked for her that she can really herd them if she is careful and slow and doesn't take her eyes off them for a second. One call of "Luna, get that chicken!" and she was off chasing wayward fowl back into their pens with almost no direction from me.

I swear she and I must have personally escorted each individual chicken into its pen. It took us a good 30 minutes to do what is normally a five minute job. Without Luna's help tonight I'd still be out there chasing chickens in the mud!

The measure of a good farm dog - Nova

Our little Nova really proved her worth today as a farm dog.

For those of you who don't know her, Nova is not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She's goofy and is certainly not a thinker. She is actually Luna's sister and full blooded litter mate, but the two could not be more different in temperament and drive. The girls were bred from farm dog stock on a small working sheep farm. Their breeder is also one of the best herding trainers I have ever met.

Nova was originally sent to a pet home because she didn't show a lot of drive to be a working dog. I remember her breeder telling me specifically that one of the reasons Nova failed was because she was reluctant to go in water. She was actually returned to her breeder in time because it turned out she had more drive than anyone thought and just could not settle into the life of a pet dog. From there she lived and was trained on her breeder's sheep farm until we came along and picked her up to complete our sheltie trio.

Well, today I needed a really specific job done. You see, it has been raining here on the farm for days. In all that time, we have not seen the sheep. They have been hanging out in the very back of the big back pasture. I am pretty sure they thought themselves unable to come back up front because of all the standing water surrounding them. Yesterday when I checked on them, they looked wet, bedraggled, and miserable. I decided it was time to move them up to the front so they could get under cover and get dry.

Most days I rely on Luna as my right hand dog, but today I called on Nova because this was going to be tough. Nova does have all those years of herding training under her belt and even though she spends most of her time acting like a fool, every now and again we see flashes of all that training and some spark of hidden brilliance. I was really hoping today would be one of those moments.

I grabbed my stock stick, my clicker and treats, put on my rubber boots and headed to the back pasture with Nova in tow. On the way there Nova was eager to run ahead and find her stock, but instead we practiced her recall over and over with lots of clicks and treats. I knew once we got out there I might have to call her off in a flash if things went wrong.

Let me tell you folks, it's bad out there. The water in places is deep. I'm talking boot-topping, sock-soaking, curse-spewing deep. At first Nova was very reluctant to plunge through the deeper areas. She even got herself stuck on a bit of an island at one point before conquering her fears and plunging her way through.

At this point, the sheep knew something was up. They had gathered into a tight group and moved as far away from me and my tiny black and white wolf-beast as they could get. It was time.

I gave Nova a command, and the chase was on! She ran around and got them headed in the right direction, then they all split into small groups and it looked like chaos was in progress. In the scramble, poor Fancy hit an uneven spot and went down. Somehow Nova, running through thorny brambles and through deep mud and water, kept her cool and got most the group back together and headed in the right direction. They ran past me and leaped over a small drainage stream.

I called Nova back to me, and she immediately hit the brakes and came back to where I was, ignoring the downed sheep just like I had hoped she would. I put her in a stay walked over to check Fancy, as I approached, Fancy hopped up, ran over, and leaped the stream to join the rest of the group already hightailing over the bridge and back up front.

Meanwhile, I directed Nova back to the group of stragglers who she easily got turned round and headed past me, over the waters, and though the gate into the next pasture. There was one sheep left. Ever since little Daisy was sick, she has developed a smart but annoying habit of running off and hiding on her own when the dogs appear. Nova and I finally located her in a thick stand of trees, and my handy farm dog got her headed on her way with ease.

By the time we trudged our way back up front, the sheep were all back together and mostly recovered from their encounter with the twenty pound sheep eating wolf beast.

Soaked to the bone and pleased as punch with herself!

Every day our pups help us run this farm in big and small ways. I don't know how we would do it without them. Today Nova proved that she can run (and sometimes even swim) with the best of them!

Of ducks and sheep and farmdoggies

 Hey, Luna, what cha doin over there? 

 The sheep are due for another Famacha check and possible worming. With the Big Onion out of town, I turned to my right hand man...er...dog for help. Luna did an awesome job of tucking the sheep into this corner and holding them there while I checked everyone's eyes and feet. It's amazing how easy the sheep are to handle when my small, fuzzy, wolf beast is staring them down.

  It was nice to see that all our adult sheep were very pink and not in need of worming. A few of the "teenagers" will need another dose of cydectin so that will be tomorrow's job. I was also happy to find that despite the almost constant rain of the last week or two, no one had obvious foot rot.

After we finished with the sheep, Luna helped me relocate the adult ducks and geese. I know I've talked in the past about how Luna was learning to herd the birds without hurting them, but today I was especially proud of her for handling a large group of unhappy birds while keeping her cool.

The last couple weeks, I've been watching her test herself with the ducks. She'd pick out a small group and move them around without my prompting. If the birds got too flappy, or she got too excited, she would pull herself off and walk away. The other day I watched her round up a bunch of small groups into one bigger group on her own before going back to very carefully move a single straggler in with the rest.

The single bird has always been a problem for Luna in the past. Trying to move one duck means much more erratic and unpredictable movement and a much higher risk of Luna losing her cool and biting. I generally don't let her even try to move a single duck because the risk of ending up with an injured or dead bird was just too high.

Well, after watching her work on her own, today I let her herd two different singles that had gotten separated from the rest of the flock during the move, and she was wonderful. We got the whole flock moved in about half the time it would have taken me if I'd tried doing it on my own.

Thanks Lu!