Xcel lets loose a small army of hungry sheep to keep its solar farm in order

At Sherco, the sheep still needed some middle management to stay on track with corporate objectives. Betsy, a black-and-white Border Collie, helped move the sheep between fenced areas and corralled them when they need to be loaded into a trailer. Ozzy, a white, fluffy Great Pyrenees, stood guard against birds, coyotes or other predators.

Princess and Spot, puppies in training to be guard dogs, slept on the job Thursday in their open-air pen.

Jerrod Nohner, a grazing operations manager for MNL, had to coax a tentative lamb down the trailer ramp to join its flock.

“The young ones, this is the first time ever unloading a trailer,” Nohner said.

After exiting, the lamb joined the pack as it streamed away from the trailer and settled at the other end of a fenced enclosure. On the other side of the road, sheep spread out and dotted the flat land.

With no trees around, the solar panels stretched as far as the eye could see. Xcel’s coal plant was visible on the horizon as the sheep took advantage, like the solar array, of what the sun had generated.