Queen Zabrina - Jen

At first I didn't think Bluff Country Zabrina, our new black ewe, was very happy here. We bought her from a farm in Minnesota and she is older and therefore bigger than the other lambs we brought in, so perhaps she was more set in her ways. While she was in the quarantine pen with the 5 other lambs, she was very shy with us and didn't appear to have any bond with the lambs.

WELL. Segue to the sheep merge a few days ago. We put them together in the morning. The pasture is big enough that they all were able to keep their distance, no major skirmishes. However, that night, we closed them up in the barn and it was like WWE lets get ready to rumble. Lots of sniffing, side swipes, some head butting and chasing. At one point, they were all jogging around the perimeter of the barn in one direction like the lions in Little Black Sambo. We thought they were trying to make a whirlpool or something. Then we noticed that the 5 new lambs were huddled behind Zabrina, and as long as they were behind her, no one from the old guard bothered them.

So it ended up Zabrina's posse was settling in in one corner of the barn and Sunny's was camped out on the other, and this is how we left them. Zabrina's benevolent leadership is now evident in the pasture, she protects the lambs, doesn't act as the aggressor but gently asserts her strength. The old guard keeps their distance. Zabrina is the black ewe on the left side of the photo. Saturday we brought two additional quarantined lambs to the main flock, Zabrina welcomed them to her entourage with a loving sniff to the butt, and they are now officially under her protection. Long live Queen Zabrina!