Petting newly shorn Sweetie
Podcast available.
We have a new sheep at our place. We call her Sweetie because she really is sweet. But she has a little problem.
She arrived about three months ago when Hamish, the stock agent, brought about 20 new sheep to graze in our paddocks. “One’s a pet sheep,” he said. “Belongs to my sister. That one’s never going to the butcher.”
At first the new sheep were down in the paddock beyond the driveway and the row of gum trees. I didn’t see them much. But after a while Hamish moved them into the paddock where the chicken run is. That’s when I got to know them.
Every morning I would cross the paddock carrying a bucket with some chicken feed. The sheep stared. One had a blue plastic ring in its ear. Another had a large, square head. Being naturally sheepish, they ran away if I came too close.
But one sheep never ran. No matter how close I came as I walked by, she would stand her ground and stick her nose out, sniffing the air. After a couple mornings, she started walking over to greet me.
One day she came so close that I was able to reach out and touch her head. Your average sheep doesn’t allow that. This had to be the pet sheep.
She has a dainty face and a large freckle on the side of her nose. She leaned into me, and I rubbed her ears.
“Aww,” I said. “You’re a sweetie.”
Then all of a sudden she thrust her head into the bucket of chicken feed I was holding, and she started eating.
For a moment I watched in disbelief as she ate. She’d played me like a fool, just to get to my chicken feed.
But then I realized that giving chicken feed to sheep just couldn’t be good. I pulled the bucket away.
I don’t know what’s in chicken feed that could taste so amazing, but Sweetie absolutely loved the stuff. She was very upset when I pulled the bucket away.
The driveway and row of gum trees
She wanted more. And she wanted it NOW.
She pushed at the bucket with her snout. She stomped her foot on the ground. She huffed and puffed and, when I walked away, she followed me all the way over to the chicken run.
There was plenty of grass in the paddock, but when she saw me scatter that chicken feed around the chicken run, I swear she had a hungry, longing look in her eyes.
Not for sheep
I immediately went to the garage and checked the chicken feed bag. Written there plainly were the words, “NOTICE: Not to be fed to Sheep, Cattle, Deer, Alpacas, Goats, or other ruminant Animals.”
Oops. That sounded very, very bad.
I hoped Sweetie would be okay.
That evening I consulted with the neighbors and a few global rural tweeters. One person told me about a sheep who’d died after breaking into their chicken feed. Would Sweetie now die a long, slow, horrible death? What would Hamish say?
A few people said they thought Sweetie should be alright as long as she didn’t get too much feed. I crossed my fingers and watched her closely for the next couple days.
Rather than showing any signs of sickness, Sweetie became even more aggressive. She was obsessed with getting more chicken feed.
She ran up to the gate when I arrived in the mornings and then followed me around like a desperate chicken-feed junkie. She came close and offered her ears for a rub. But I knew her tricks now. She wasn’t going to play me.
When I scattered the feed around the chicken run, she went absolutely crazy. She actually started butting her head against the chicken wire and kicking at the corrugated aluminum. She was not a happy sheep.
“I need my chicken feed!” she seemed to scream.
Act of desperation
One morning while feeding the chickens in a sleepy-eyed blur I stepped away from the door to the run for just a moment. I left the door wide open.
Gate to paddock with chicken run
Watching from not too far away was the chicken-feed obsessed Sweetie. She saw her chance and made a run for it.
You could see the absolute delight on her face – her thoughts of leaping into the run and landing in mountains and mountains of chicken feed on the other side.
Once there she would gorge herself on her delicious drug of choice like there was no tomorrow. And of course, there wouldn’t be. Like a true addict, the thought that her addiction might kill her never entered her mind.
There was only one thing for me to do. I broke out into a run, back towards the door.
Sweetie was running hard.
Fortunately I was closer than she was and I got there first.
I stood in front of the door and breathed a sigh of relief. That is, until I realized that Sweetie wasn’t slowing down.
She was now running directly towards me, full force ahead. If she couldn’t go around me, she was apparently planning to go right through me.
I put out my arms and yelled. It seemed we were playing a game of chicken, all because of some chicken feed.
At the last possible moment, Sweetie finally put on the brakes. She slid and stopped just short of ramming into me.
Clearly I have a serious problem. I have the world’s first self-destructive, chicken-feed-addicted ruminant mammal on my hands.
Low grass
Sweetie in the olive grove
Eventually the grass in the paddock with the chicken run was eaten down, and Hamish moved the sheep to the olive grove.
I don’t see Sweetie every day now.
But I think it’s good for her to be away from the chickens and all that tempting chicken feed. After all, it only serves as a constant reminder of the drug she cannot have.
And when I go down into the olive grove I still get to give her the odd rub around her ears.
Because of course she always comes running up to me, acting all sweet.
She’s still trying to catch me carrying chicken feed.
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Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine
‘The sweet taste of chicken feed’ appeared in the Autumn 2010 issue of Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.
See other ‘Moon’ stories from Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.
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Pet sheep- the ones that go to ‘live on another farm’
Usually for the exchange of mutton ;-)
We kept one at Trentham Camp that used to eat chocolate bars and meat pies!
It was SUPPOSED to be getting fattened for the end of year barbecue, but the bloody softies who organized it couldn’t do the business!
Baaaaa–hahahaha! Great story!
Yes, chicken feed is pretty much poison for everything except chickens…and my dogs, goats and horses are crazy for the stuff. It’s nice to hear that the addiction isn’t limited to my little postage-stamp of a farm.
Thanks for the laugh!
p.s. my goats are also crazy for horse food, which is perfectly fine to feed them–maybe you could offer that to Sweetie as an alternate drug-of-choice?
Hilarious. I love sheep. The best part was when you were both going for the chicken run door – I saw you in slow-motion with “Chariots of Fire” music …
Well, the goats here refer to the soaked beet pulp–intended for the horses–as “bleat pulp”, while their own sweet feed is “goat meal”. Bleat pulp wins over goat meal every time. You might offer some to Sweetie, if they carry it at your feed store–or perhaps a Hershey bar.
I’ve been scratching my brain wondering how chicken feed can kill sheep and why there would be a warning on the chicken feed bag saying “NOTICE: Not to be fed to Sheep, Cattle, Deer, Alpacas, Goats, or other ruminant Animals”. One possibility, although still not sure, is the Ruminant Feed Ban, http://bit.ly/dksH08, because of Mad Cow Disease. If the chicken feed contains animal meal, then perhaps the spread of Mad Cow Disease to sheep is a major consideration???
@Peter: The problem with poultry feeds is that they have a amino acidin them, called Methionine. Methionine makes the birds healthier, but is poisonous to mammals in the concentration that the feeds contain. The problem could be worse for ruminants, like Sweetie, since the additive stays longer in the system.
Thanks, Jim, for the explanation. I see that the sheep industry has experimented widely with using methionine supplements to enhance the quality and quantity of wool production, but they must have been using lower levels of the amino acid as an additive. Rumen microbes rapidly degrade amino acids so rumen-protected methionine has been used. Anyway, it is interesting how different feeds are used in the animal industry.
Some kind of feeds whit low content in fiber can low the pH in rumen. That can kill the microbes in rumen and the animal may die.
Thanks for the explanations, Jim and Neko. I never truly understood the reason.