I had every intention of waiting to go get the sheep until this weekend when the Gingerman could help me but I got an offer I could not refuse on Sunday. The gentleman who had arranged for us to take our sheep over to Hermiston offered to come help me load up the sheep on Monday and then we could load up all of the animals going to the auction in his trailer and he would take them to the auction the very next day. They could spend the night at his house in a pen before going to auction. I had so many sheep for sale with all of the cull ewes that I was going to have to make two trips because they would not all fit into my trailer.
I went into work very early so I could leave, drive home, change clothes, load up all of the aluminum panels into the back of the old pickup and hitch up the stock trailer to drive to Hermiston. I beat him there and was able to gather the lambs and cull ewes into the main field from the neighbors. I got there just after noon. This is important because the sun goes down around 1630. The plan was simple to begin with, just put the panels together to create a wide chute and as the sheep go into it just pull the panel side around them into a circle so that they can be forced into the large stock trailer. It took about 2.5 hours to get those 77 sheep into the trailer! It was so painful. We bent two panels and tore the hinges off of one of those two. I need to look at the slatted steel short panels. The sheep just push when there are almost 80 and they can create a lot of force.
They just would not go into the trailer then when they did they clogged up the first eight feet only and then you had to get into the back of the trailer and battle them to get them to scoot forward. My poor hat took a lot of abuse as I was using it as a prompt to get the sheep to move forward. It sort of worked for this but not well. Three time we had to crawl up into the trailer and literally force them forward an inch at a time! It was brutally tiring. We decided early on that the eaters that were going home with me could just be pulled from the trailer after they were loaded! There was no way we were going to get them sorted out in the field.
We now needed to get the ewes from a neighboring field. The plan was to open the gate, in the middle of the fence, and chase them out into the driveway. We would then push them down to the temporary corral we had made, close it up and then drive them into our trailer. This sounds reasonable until or unless you have ever worked hair sheep with a dog. The pregnant sheep are not cooperative, how not, they would charge the dog! They just did not give a shit and would not do it. They got chased around for almost an hour before we finally got them out into the driveway and it was fairly easy to push them down to the corral. The ewes are a lot more likely to load up into the trailer easily. They know it is not necessarily and evil place. Once they were in our trailer we snagged seven eaters from Wil’s trailer and drug them over to ours.
I took the picture after I got home in the dark! I was able to back up to the chute and then open the gates. I expected the sheep to just run out but of course they did not do that. They could not see so they were not going to leave the trailer. I guess I could have just left the trailer backed up to the chute and they would have left eventually. I did not do that, instead I crawled into the stock trailer and started to toss sheep at the ramp to get them to go out into the barn lot. It took my about ten minutes to get them unloaded and all of the gates shut. The barn was ready so all I had to do was get them into the barn lot.
He ended up taking 70 animals to the sale for us on Tuesday. The cull ewes sold for $110/ea, the female lambs $120/ea and the whethers $140/ea. By the time we paid all of the fees we made almost $8k on the auction animals. I will be using some of that money to replace the panels we broke and to explore getting some steel ones to use for sorting purposes. All in all it was well worth the long day!
Stewart Creek Somethings 