A Wairarapa sheep that decided to break away from a flock of 700 while being moved between paddocks got herself into trouble after getting stuck in a muddy mess of silt earlier this week.
Farmer Zoe Richardson who lives on a 6000 acre family farm in the Tararua region, told 1News Cyclone Gabrielle had caused a slip that took out a fence that was separating two paddocks.
On Monday, as the sheep were being moved away from the slip, one of them decided she wanted to go back to her old paddock and made a run for it.
However the mud - “silt and slop” as Richardson described it - proved too much for the rogue ewe, and she ended up being stuck there for a couple of hours.
“She just got herself into a wee bit of a predicament,” Richardson said.
“I tried to get in there but it was too deep, I just sunk as soon as I went in,” she said of her attempt to rescue the ewe.
Her brother Charlie was already in the family digger, doing clean-up work on the farm, so Richardson ran the 100 metres down from the slip to get him to help.
“He came up with the idea to just scoop her out,” Richardson said. Footage shows the ewe calmly letting the digger do just that before she ran to safer ground.
“She’s back in her paddock where she needs to be,” Richardson said.
The family farm 8000 sheep and 370 cows and say they were fortunate their land wasn’t too badly affected by the cyclone and no animals were lost.
Zoe and her mother Lisa have been helping coordinate a response through their Facebook page, also donating $1000 to the Hawke’s Bay recovery through a local farm store.
“I think we’ve all had a good cry about what farmers are in for in the last few days,” Richardson said.
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