Great Escape

It was very nice of the sheep to wait until the weekend to effect their breakout. I had just gone down to the paddock to give them a supplemental feed when I saw one of our sheep, Apricot, in the bottom paddock. When she saw me coming, she took fright and ran through the boundary fence (the boundary fence in the bottom paddock is just 5 strand wire) and into the no man’s land between us and the vineyard. Fortunately, she didn’t move much more than that.

I poured out the sheep nuts on the ground for them and Gary and Peaches started eating their feed quite happily, but Apricot wanted to get back into the paddock and get herself some of those yummy treats. The fence is obviously harder to get under from the outside, so she just stood around looking sheepish (pun intended).

Next, I rounded up the family and we did some sheepherding. We drove Apricot back through the fence and through the bottom paddock to the gate without too much trouble, and then into her own paddock.

Finally, I inspected the fence line and found where she was getting through. I had not really fixed the fence properly when I first did it. It was dark and I was in a rush. Still, it has taken the sheep 6 months to break out, so not a bad outcome.

Now to start saving for fixing the boundary fences properly. Farm fences should really be replaced every ten years or so. I have about 2km of boundary fence to replace and about 570 star posts. If I replace the posts with a timber post every third post, then that’s about 376 star posts and 193 timber posts. The timber posts will cost me about $10 each and the star posts are about $8 each. Along with that, I need fencing wire and wire mesh (I need to make the fences goat proof). So I reckon that the entire enterprise (boundaries only) is going to cost me something in the vicinity of $8,200.

While I’m at it, I also need to divide the bottom and top paddocks for goats … and new shelters in the bottom paddock. Hrumph, more costs.