Last night we went out to dinner and so weren't here to supervise chicken bedtime. It was their first experience with night and darkness, as they have lived their whole life so far under a heat lamp. They didn't know what to do, and when we got home we found them huddled together in one corner of their yard. We had to pick each one up and put them into their house to get them to sleep in there. They did the same thing at dusk tonight, so again I picked up each one and put her or him into the house. They will figure it out. Just a little slow.
Today it was time to start shearing sheep. We have been working up to being able to catch them by letting them out of their yard to graze in our yard and not threatening them at all. So today they trotted right out. We closed a couple gates and then chased them in to their inner corral and trapped them. Then I sat in there with them for quite awhile just reading and ignoring them to calm them a little. Then Rich came in and we got ahold of Percy, and put the halter on him. Rich held him while I sheared. I think it took us about 2 hours. Had to flip him on his back first so I could do the belly. Then we stood him up and tied him close to the fence so I could do the rest. He has very dense thick wool. No shots during because we were both a little busy, but here's before
and after!
Not a great job - lot's of second cuts and I didn't get him close enough, but not terrible for the first time either! I didn't quite finish, because I was being so careful not to cut his skin as I was doing the final trimming around his butt, and I cut my finger. Lots of blood, so I had to go in the house and deal with it. Hopefully we can catch him again. We have to wait a couple weeks to do Grizel. It's supposed to rain next weekend. It will also be good to give her a little time to forget about being trapped!
After we were done, we pulled our lawn chairs up closde to the chicken yard, opened a few beers, and watched chicken TV. Rich commented that we used to watch baby TV. Many years ago. Sigh. Since we have no grandchildren to stare at and marvel over, we're making do with toddler chicken TV.
