Sheepdog trialling offers chance to put bite back into Games

Farming correspondent

Monday 6 August 2012

The Olympics haven't gripped me as much as the rest of the nation, and that's probably because I have little interest in most of the sports.

Custom byline text:

Farming DIARY ROG WOOD

It seems to me there should be more rural events like sheep-shearing competitions. Top shearers are super athletes, who need the eyes of a skilled marksman and the stamina of a marathon runner.

Perhaps a more attractive event to enthrall audiences is sheepdog trialling, that tests the skills and special bonding of a sheepdog and its handler. The sport was popularised by Phil Drabble's TV series One Man and His Dog, that attracted huge audiences.

Of course sheepdogs don't confine their skills to guiding a small group of wily sheep round a course and finally penning them. Some dog handlers did demonstrations at local agricultural shows and other country events, using their sheepdogs to guide small groups of ducks round an obstacle course. That is particularly popular with children, and often has the audience laughing.Ducks and geese, like sheep, flock together and lend themselves to being driven by sheepdogs. Indeed, quite a few sheepdogs started to learn the skills of their craft as young pups rounding up ducks in the farmyard. In medieval times, geese were driven by dogs long distances to lucrative markets like Smithfield in London.While geese and ducks can be herded together into a flock, hens are a totally different matter. On being startled, they prefer to scatter in all directions – and hens are seriously lacking when it comes to road sense. The free-range ones that my wife used to keep, specialised in absent-mindedly scratching roadside verges until a vehicle approached, when without any warning, they would run in front of it and throw themselves under the wheels.Trying to get them into their henhouse in the evening to roost could also be a frustrating task. My wife used to cull her hens as they approached the end of their second laying season and replace them with point-of-lay pullets. Those young birds were confined to their henhouses until they had been trained to roost on their perches. That involved someone going down to the henhouse at dusk and lifting any wayward birds from out of the nesting boxes, or from the floor, and placing them on the perches. Once they had learned to roost properly we would then let them out for a few hours every day in late afternoon. Most stood timorously at the open door, looking out to the great outdoors, although there were always a few that boldly ventured forth to scratch within a few yards of the safety of their henhouses. As the days went by, more and more learned the attractions of a free-range way of life and roamed ever further from home in search of tasty worms and insects. We always securely shut our hens in their henhouses in late evening to protect them from foxes that prowled the farm at night. Unfortunately, some pullets would still be out and about at dusk, rather than roosting on their perches when we went to shut them in. I can tell you from bitter experience that it is a frustrating and difficult task to drive pullets into a henhouse against their wishes!So, driving hens could be a really challenging Olympic sport. I have even seen it in action on a recent visit to Carlingford, County Louth in Ireland, where the National Poultry Races were held on Easter Monday.The rules for each race, that involved five or six birds, were simple. The handlers, mostly children, would line up their birds. The starter would then say: "Ready, steady (at this point the bird is held gently, with its feet on the ground) and then "Go", when the handler is allowed to stand behind the bird and shoo it to the line. The handler must walk at all times, as running leads to disqualification, as does touching the bird after the off. While birds can cross lanes, if for any reason they fly out of the enclosure before the finish, they are disqualified. The races were mayhem, with hens running in all direction except for the finishing line. The afternoon turned out to be great family entertainment and created a lot of laughs. There was also betting that was more or less a lottery. That, and the entry fees, helped raise a lot of money for local charities.In the likely event of the Olympic organisers declining to include chicken racing in the 2016 Games, I would strongly recommend it to local charities as a fun fundraiser.

Contextual targeting label:

Agriculture

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Sheepdog trialling offers chance to put bite back into Games

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED