For a "happy little farm", we had an incredible amount of sheep fighting this past winter. Girls fighting girls (not that uncommon), girls fighting boys (also not that uncommon), young boys trying to fight with girls (older boys know better ;-) and the clashes of the titans (big fat boys fighting with big fat boys :-o).
Somewhere back in the archives that I can no longer locate I think I took a video of one of the fights and definitely some better "action pictures". The pictures below look pretty tame, but if you notice Woody's ear in the first picture, you can see that it no longer stands upright.
Woody, Baaxter and Burrnie all have busted and broken ears. Woody's ear was so bad that he required three vet visits and a minor surgery. Rocky incurred a shoulder injury from which he now, six weeks later, finally seems to have recovered.
This fighting went on for weeks. Many weeks. I could do nothing to stop it and even toyed with separating everyone into four different paddocks - the oldies, the girls, the boys and the fat "jerks" (not the word I actually used ;-).
There was plenty of food, plenty of space, plenty of space between food. No new sheep, no change in routine, nothing had changed from any of the previous years. Or had it...
During shearing at Final Frontier this spring I was sharing my tale of woe and Kathy said, "Well, some dynamic has changed." What was it?
The sheep who loved to "mix it up" the most was Chocula. He'd excitedly race over to fight with anyone! And when he'd join the fight...everyone else would give up, look grumpy and just walk away.
I don't think Chocula was joining the fights. I think he was breaking them up.
