Nikol-1; Hokey Pokey-0. Sort of.

So, being a genius, I decided to go ahead and swap out all the tight sheep suits right at dark. You can probably imagine that that’s a really excellent idea.

Actually, it started out just fine. I hit up Fudgy while everyone was still at the feeder, so I got very little complaining. Then I threw down a fresh bale of hay to bribe/engage them (they’ve been finishing off last winter’s very dry stuff–FIFO–so this was a treat) and started to work my way around to the others. Agnes was pretty quick too, though she’s a big kicker and a hopper. And her suit was so snug, I finally gave up and just cut the leg straps. It’s really poor form to let it go this long–they weren’t binding her skin or anything, but there wasn’t enough slack to cram a protesting folded-up leg through. If it had been one of the Shetlands, I’d’ve forced it, but Agnes has delicate hooves and I couldn’t see what the hell I was doing.

A word on sizes. When you jacket your sheep, you  need to change their jackets periodically to keep up with the wool growth. Our fleeces have grown anywhere from 2 to 4 inches so far, which means the animals are several more inches around than they were when I dressed them. I’ll need to bring most of them up another size at some point near the end of winter as well. (In addition, the teenagers have also grown overall.)

I were a good record-keeper, I could just look up the last size suit on each animal, jump up a couple of sizes, and TCB. But I’m not.

From last year, when all the suits were new and I had to buy them as I went along, I had a pretty good idea of what sizes Agnes and Fudgy should be in fall, but with all the yearlings, it was a crap shoot.  Jayne’s now a bit bigger than Agnes, so I figured the suit one size up from hers would work. I did hit a snafu when I tried to get his leg out of the strap but instead somehow twisted it twice around his foot, hobbling him. I managed to keep him calm and luckily I still had the scissors in my pocket and snipped him free before he hurt himself, then popped the new suit on before he could freak out. It’s a little loose, but should be fine. But I’ve never done that before–wrapped the strap around a foot like that–further confirmation that undertaking this process in the dark was really, really dumb. It could have gone terribly wrong. But oddly, that near-miss didn’t convince me to pack it in and finish tomorrow.

Apparently I thought moving on to the animals of indeterminate size would be a good idea.

I tried to anticipate the size problem this spring by making GIGANTIC marks on all the suits with magic marker, but the sun and elements erased them. In this picture, you can see Uncle Honeybunch’s mark (though shortly after this picture, he utterly destroyed the suit–a peril of using a too-big jacket–so he’s currently in a different one). Next spring, I’ll embroider huge marks instead. And maybe, you know, keep better records. (I’m not entirely useless; I do track vacs and FAMACHA scores responsibly. But it’s easier to be good when it’s health-related.)

So with no idea who’s due for what size (and a limited number of suits overall), I just had to take out a stack of suits and hold them each up to each animal to eyeball them. That’s easier said than done. When you approach a sheep with an outstretched jacket, it becomes understandably suspicious and typically bolts before you can do the math. And sometimes I guess wrong and have to put the old suit back on.

That’s what happened with Uncle Honeybunch. When I finally go this suit off, I discovered that the right-sized one wouldn’t fit over his now-larger horns (that type of jacket comes with a different design  for horned sheep). Then I reached for the new-style jacket I picked up at Mid States last month. But it’s a show jacket, meant for close-cropped meat breeds, and the neck was WAY too narrow to make it around a Shetland’s mane, even if it would clear his horns (which it probably would not). So back on went the ill-fitting clumsily modified piece of go se. Throughout, I got to enjoy the assault of Mr. Shivers, who had decided my restraining Honeybunch was an excellent opportunity to ram him, so while I was struggling with the stupid leg straps and the wriggling sheep, Shivers kept backing up and charging Uncle Honeybunch, who would casually lower his head each time just in time for impact. I was a little nervous Mr. Shivers might find me a more interesting adversary. Lacking a sheep’s thick skull and woolly padding, that was not a happy prospect.

Then came Hokey Pokey, who took all my restraint to catch, and all my strength to hold on to. Only Ronnie is as elusive, and no one bucks like Hokey Pokey. That little dude is STRONG. He almost got away from me three or four times, and even then, he was dragging me behind him. I finally straddled him backwards and had wrestled out one of his legs, when suddenly he took off! He’s was fluffy and exactly the right height that, with him bounding along, I couldn’t get off him! I was stuck on his back, backwards, with him tearing around the barnyard in the dark. Finally I managed to kind of hop up and off him. Unexpectedly riding a frantic sheep backward? Not so fun.

I realized I needed a plan. With his suit half off, I couldn’t just leave him–he’d either get tangled in it or at least mess up his gorgeous, immaculate black fleece. So I went and got a halter and some more feed, lured him to the feeder with everyone else, whipped on the harness, and let him buck and leap into the air and bolt and go bananas until he realized he was doomed. Then he just gave up and plopped down, where I quickly removed the other leg strap and whisked off the jacket only to realize neither remaining jacket fit him, either. The first was only an inch or so longer than his current one and the second was too narrow for his fluffy Merino neck. Happy I hadn’t snipped him out of his suit, I quickly redressed him, gave him some nice deep scratching before unhaltering him and headed back in, victorious. Except for that part about not actually getting him into a new suit. That part sucked.

Tonight I’ll wash the jackets I took off Fudgy, Agnes & Jayne. Since they’re the bigger animals, I’ll probably be able to dress the others in their hand-me-downs. And I’ll slit that tapered neck on the show jacket and put in a nice, wide stretchy gusset made of an old T-shirt.

And for the record: Fudgy, size III Midstates jacket; Agnes, size H Sheep Suit; Jayne, size I Sheep Suit. Ta da!

Look at me, learning my lesson.