Herd health days, what herd health days?

That was easy and dare I say it even: kind of fun. With a full and experienced crew of 6, including both of our kids, we whipped through the entire herd in just a day and a half. In reality less even as we stopped yesterday around 2PM to take in hay (and in my case drive Maxy to his practice up in Hanover, NH) and today we had things wrapped at the Arena in just 2.5 hours. The soccer player in question worked the clipboard for most of the time while his older brother worked virtually the entire time as one of the two holders/wrestlers. Cephi was the other holder, Kim was the shot giver and body score person, and my beloved and I each were trimming toe nails until we could trim no more!

After a summer of helping his mother do occasional ultrasounds and me handle our Herdsires on an almost daily basis, Sam has really come into his own. Though anyone can ultimately handle an unruly juvenile or yearling, the ability to control a grumpy imported pregnant female while she’s having her feet picked up is another matter entirely. Yes, some of the girls did take him for a ride a time or two and he did occasionally get knocked onto his tuchus as well but he always came up smiling. It’s impossible to underestimate the importance of good handling and control, it makes the whole operation run so much more smoothly. As it was by 11:30 this morning we are all back down at the house enjoying an early lunch and basking in the quick completion of one of the more odious tasks we take on here. Any chance we could bust the boys out of school come November, the next time toe nails are due to be trimmed?