Tonight there was a warm-up shearing session. The eight Torwen tegs bought in from Wales last year as ewe lambs to add fresh blood to the breeding stock were the first to lose their coats. The shaggy fleece bleaches from black to brown in the sun over the year between shearings, but freshly done, they are as black as black, with their distinctive beige bellies, chins and eyebrows. There was the usual wriggling and squirming of young, inexperienced sheep, and a real sigh of relief when they were all found to be maggot free. This warm, wet weather provides the perfect conditions for flystrike, and maggot removal comes pretty close to as yucky as it gets. So, sometime over the bank holiday weekend the main flock will be barbered, as will Toyboy the ram. There will be swearing, there will be bruising and there will be sweating. The sheep will be fine.
Friday, 25 May 2007
Shearing of tegs
Tonight there was a warm-up shearing session. The eight Torwen tegs bought in from Wales last year as ewe lambs to add fresh blood to the breeding stock were the first to lose their coats. The shaggy fleece bleaches from black to brown in the sun over the year between shearings, but freshly done, they are as black as black, with their distinctive beige bellies, chins and eyebrows. There was the usual wriggling and squirming of young, inexperienced sheep, and a real sigh of relief when they were all found to be maggot free. This warm, wet weather provides the perfect conditions for flystrike, and maggot removal comes pretty close to as yucky as it gets. So, sometime over the bank holiday weekend the main flock will be barbered, as will Toyboy the ram. There will be swearing, there will be bruising and there will be sweating. The sheep will be fine.
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2 comments:
She looks like a sheep crossed with a Doberman!
I think I am in love. Isn't she beautiful? What a babe!
I'm never sure what there is to like about sheep - their lives seem a catalogue of hard work, hunger, dirt, disease and death. (Don't they say that the first sign of ill-health in a sheep is often death...?
By coincidence our local flock were undergoing the same treatment today - in the shed over the garden wall. Much baaing.
And thank you - I can now identify a Torwen!
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