The Wandering Shepherd 3

Penning the Sheep

An important part of the Shepherd's life is finding a nightly home for his sheep. Surprising to me is that Georg finds it one of his bigger challenges. He does not find this area helpful. You cannot put the pen on good feed, the sheep would just destroy it. And you cannot overuse an area, it would just become a mess for the sheep. Especially when it rains, which it is doing right now. We have a powerful thunderstorm echoing across the mountains.

When Georg was young Shepherds were with their sheep 24 hours when they were out in the fields. They slept in a very basic van/caravan. Nowadays Georg goes home every night. It is still a long day though -  50 mins to and fro.

The pens are netting that is electrified. The size is determined by Georg and depends on the terrain and feeding pattern of the area he is in. Many are for single nights but he does have several locations that are up to 3 nights.

                                

The sheep are never a problem to put in the pen but coming out is another matter. They can be very fast or annoyingly slow. Depending on their mood I guess!! Or perhaps what they can see the other side of the fence!!
But they have been taught that as long as the dogs are running freely they have to stay in the area - and this gives Georg the opportunity to pull down the pen in preparation for taking it to the new site.







Water for the Sheep

The Albs do not have many rivers and the Lauchert is the only one that is in this area. When he is not in easy reach of the river Georg has to manually cart the water.

Although you have to walk the sheep to the Lauchert it is the easier option than bringing the water to the sheep!

Fortunately sheep are not big drinkers!