Wingus choked to death on electronet

I was able to bail him out a couple days ago, but today he snuck by and we just didn’t catch him in time.  He was tangled where there is a lot of bramble and it’s not easy to see if a sheep is actually tangled or not without stomping out there in the mud and thorns.

No more electronet for us.  This is the first (and hopefully only) death from it, but we’ve had so many close calls with our other sheep that we’re just going to have to put up something else that is higher-hassle to move around for our temporary fencing.

I know it’s our first year (from when we got our initial sheep), and my husband keeps saying that part of starting out even on a small scale is losing animals due to inexperience, but we were really hoping to eat Wingus, he was really massive.  And the punchline is that we don’t know enough about dead animals to know if the meat is salvageable, so he’s going straight in the ground as fertilizer.

I’m just feeling very overwhelmed right now.  My own child is gaining like crazy, if his current gains persist, I’d have a 90lb one year old.  So it’s hard to wait for the old energy levels to get back up.  But it’s good to have a healthy, comically large newborn.

Anyway, we have a lot to learn, and in the meantime our bellies will have to be filled with humble pie as we gain that wisdom from experience.

3 thoughts on “Wingus choked to death on electronet

  1. So sorry about Wingus. Learning about animals from experience is painful but permanent! So glad the human offspring is doing so well–although it will take you awhile to regain your strength and energy. Best of luck!

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  2. Sorry about your loss. Seems sheep are more prone to tangle, we have a nubian goat heard and haven’t lost one (5 years grazing 9 months of the year with 14-28 head). I know Michelle at TheCollieFarm uses EP netting for her sheep, maybe she has some special breed that doesn’t touch the netting, although I know she’s lost sheep to the netting also. The whole Livestock, Deadstock thing isn’t pleasant, even if it is true.

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