The Clash of the Sheep

As you know by now (or if you don't you should probably read some of these: sheep and more sheepy,  ), I work with animals. As of late, a lot of sheep. Each with their own quirks and personalities. Each of which drive me insane, besides Big because he is just so sweet and never makes trouble.

At work, we have this excellent routine down to get out of the barn and up in the lab as soon as possible so we can start the days work of sampling and centrifuging and weighing out incredibly smelly things like rumen fluid, duodenal fluid, and even dried ground feces. I know, you can't even imagine most of these smells and I urge you not to. It isn't pleasant, but once you are around it for long enough you don't smell it anymore. But that doesn't stop every single person from smelling you unfortunately. One hour in the barn and you are officially tainted. You can change your clothes, you can put on apple smelly spray, you can change out of your boots but the smell lingers there until you take a shower. It kind of seeps into your hair and you smell like a fresh ball of hay!

That isn't what I wanted to talk to you about at all! So... we have this routine. We dump/weigh the orts (just a pointless fancy word used to describe the food they left over). Weigh out new food accordingly. Dump the water buckets and refill them. Clean the pens and put fresh shavings down. If there are two of us doing this we can usually get 16 animals done in 1-1.5 hours. If it is just me, then it takes closer to 2.

On this particular Tuesday, as Melanie was running around trying to get their feed together because they have been stubborn and not wanting to eat what we have to give them, I was left to clean by myself. I get to Pen 9, more formally known as Stompy because he gets angry with me and stomps his feet a lot in a show of his extreme disapproval of me being there. He has fresh water, a particularly clean pen, and I am now giving him a light, fluffy and dry bed of shaving to sleep on.

I don't see why this is a problem. I particularly like sleeping on a dry warm bed and drinking water that isn't filled with dirt and other hay particles. You would think sheep would like this too. The other 15 fellows I deal with seem to quite enjoy it.

But not Stompy. Oh no. These accommodations are not up to his golden standard and he is peeved by the fact he isn't staying at the Ritz. I think this has slowly been stirring inside him for some time. I think he has been plotting his revenge on me for quite a while. After seeing that stomping was getting him nowhere, he had to plan greater and bigger things! Therefore, the next obvious thing for him to do is 1. Ram me. 2. Bite a large chunk of my hair out of my head.

I wish I was kidding. I wish I could say I didn't look up in complete and utter surprise at Stompy's smug expression as he was holding a mouthful of my hair. I wish my head didn't start bleeding down the side of my face. And I wish that he was a person so I could have smacked that stupid, arrogant expression off of his face. You wouldn't think sheep could be arrogant. Oh, but they can. They really really can.

But we don't all get what we wish for do we? Nope. Not this girl who now has hair matted with blood.

Stompy: 1
Kaitlyn: 0