Ram on the loose.

Evan and I went out to do chores this morning and Evan yells out from the deck, "Hey, one of the sheep is out!"

"No, couldn't be.", I thought. I walked over to the chicken coop side of the barn and sure enough there was our new white ram munching on grass across the fence from one of our buck goats. My only thought was that he was trying to reach the falling acorns and after finding himself on the wrong side of the electric fence had no desire to go back through the fence to rejoin the ewes.

Evan, McKayla and I tried to get him to go through one of the open gates but he was too skittish and confused to oblige. He didn't seem like he was interested in wondering too far away from the pasture with the ewes so I just left him alone and continued on with chores. After the chores were done I offered him an open gate again but he didn't go through.

Finally, after being out all day, I went back out at dusk to try again. Just me this time... no kids to get him all flighty. He was agitated and pacing the fence so he wanted to return to the pasture. I opened the gate and stepped away to give him room. He took a few cautious steps forward and then made a mad dash through the gate and across the pasture to his ewes... who had quite forgotten about him by now.

A quick sniff of all three ewes and he settled right in to grazing.