Popcorn... I mean Bighorn sheep

This week I worked twice with sheep. Once was with domestic sheep, inside a temperature controlled room with no more then 3 sheep per room. On Friday, I spent the afternoon with bighorn sheep, outside in the mud and wind. It was great! I got a chance to try to draw blood (I now have an understanding what the phrase "thick coat" really means), trim hooves, give injections, and restrain bighorn sheep. We used a chute setup for the first group of sheep. In this system the sheep walk forward into the squeeze chute (in this case it looks sort of like a tube). It is difficult to explain- but here is a photo of a setup very  similar to the one I work with. I found this photo here

Once we finished we moved on to the next group. We need to draw blood from the ewes to check for a pregnancy test. We also needed to swab the noses and throats of a few of them for additional tests. Everyone needed their feet trimmed. We herded all the ewes into a smaller pen. My classmates and I assumed we would be doing the same thing as before- meaning loading the sheep into a chute. We were mistaken. No, we are going to enter a pen of about 15 or so ewes (maybe it was less, but it felt like it was a lot more) with a few lambs in the mix and just grab one (by the horns is the best way I found out) and restrain it and do all the work. We all looked at each with the same look - you can't be serious! Well we enter the enclosure and sheep go in every direction including up. It looked like bighorn sheep popcorn. The tall fences surrounding the enclosure were covered with plywood. The sheep would run up the fence and over us- think 7 feet in the air. Once we got an animal in a corner someone would go for the horns once they made a grab about 4 more people would join in to help restrain. Generally we had two people on the back end- one person restraining while the other trimmed the hooves. Up front someone else would be trimming and another person taking blood. After a while we got pretty efficient. 

By the end, everyone's feet were frozen, everyone was muddy, and everyone had a huge smile on their face. I am really enjoying this job and the incredible hands on experience I am receiving.