Photo courtesy of Abrielle Santee
The ewes and Homer the goat peacefully graze at the Casper College Ranch.
By Abrielle Santee
Ovine convicts escaped their enclosure at the Casper College Ranch on Saturday, Sept. 23 and ended up in a barn where they ate a small portion of students horse feed. The college’s sheep flock consists of two rams and 20 to 25 head of breeding ewes. A student alerted authorities of the breakout around nine p.m. Saturday. Sunday morning Agriculture Instructor and Advisor Heath Hornecker brought CC student and work-study employee Garrison Utter onto the scene to round up any last stragglers and find out how the sheep escaped. Once out at the ranch, they found a small hole in the fence. Hornecker explained that regardless of the fence’s state, sheep rarely stray from the flock. For this reason, he and several others in the college’s agriculture department believe a phony shepherd infiltrated the barnyard. The criminal in question is named Homer. Homer is the free-range goat orphaned at the ranch and then adopted by the college.
Agriculture Instructor Anne Wood said, “He is well loved and the troublemaker of the ranch.” When talking about the ewes getting out, she said, “He’s the leader of the bunch, and these are pregnant and hormonal women happy to follow their new best friend.”
Homer now resides inside the fence with the flock. The Agriculture Department hopes this will dispel his loneliness and halt his mischief. Coming to his defense is Homer’s number one fan and Dean of the School of Science Gerald Hawkes who insists Homer is a scapegoat — a goat in the wrong place at the wrong time. Back on the ranch the flock’s safety is one of the top priorities for ranch staff. Saturday night, the students shooed the wooly escape artists out of Barn 3 and put up a temporary panel to prevent them from re-entering the barn. Barn 3 is the stalling barn the rodeo students used to house their horses and tack, including their feed and hay. The next morning Hornecker and Utter found the last couple of ewes around the pivot, eating alfalfa. Ranch staff moved the panels and perpetrators away from the faulty fence and into a more secure location until someone could mend the fence. Hornecker and Utter examined the ewes for any sign of injury or illness before checking the barns for stolen contraband.
“It’s a big concern — you don’t want them to get into any hay left out for other animals or anything else they’re not supposed to have,” Utter said.
Sheep, being small ruminants, makes them prone to bloat, which is a disease caused by rapid changes in a ruminant’s diet and overfeeding. Bloat is a common disease that can be fatal if not treated in time. On top of that, sheep cannot ingest copper, a heavy metal essential in horse rations. No one knows exactly how many sheep broke out or for how long. Between the break-in buffet in Barn 3 and the feast out at the pivot, Hornecker happily reported that there weren’t any signs of bloat or injury.
“We had attentive students that said ‘hey this a problem,’ (and they) knew it could be a really bad problem and were able to get the sheep moved out and back somewhere safe before it became an issue,” Hornecker said.
The absence of students who normally care for the sheep made everyone even more grateful the ewes came out unscathed. Approximately two weeks later, the flock staged another breakout. This time, ranch staff found no sheep outside the pen. Instead, they found an open gate and hoof prints in the mud. Whether this is a user error or a sign of Homer’s increasing intelligence is still up for speculation. Whatever the case may be, the agriculture department is discussing plans to add chains and a padlock to increase the security of the enclosure.
In the meantime, Hornecker said, “All sheep are safe. Everybody’s happy. Hopefully, Tuesday (October 10), we’ll find out if everybody’s pregnant and on schedule to lamb.”
Having survived their jailbreak antics, all the ewes, joined by Homer, took a field trip up to the ag pavilion on October 10 for pregnancy checks and vaccinations. Professor Hornecker’s Introduction to Animal Science class gave the bunch lots of love while learning how to properly ultrasound and give shots.
