A day of preparation. Just one week to go before the rams (Toy-boy and Samson) are reintroduced to their laydeez, so the girls need titivating and trimming. The area around their tails is crutched, which is basically a mini-shearing session, removing the heavy fleece on their tails, back legs and bottom to keep them clean, offer easy access to the chaps, and hopefully in five months time still offer visible access to the udder when lambing gets going. Because Badger Face sheep are meant to keep their long tails unlike many other breeds that have their tails ringed within the first few days of life, they look particularly daft without the fleece, carrying incongrously naked bell-pull tails.
Once wormed and bikini waxed, the black Torwens and white Torddus were split into separate fields so that the rams can tend to their own and generate purebred offspring, which gives me the option of selling breeding stock if there are some particularly choice examples born.
For another seven days the chaps will grow increasingly whiffy, testosterone oozing wildly and filling the air with the unmistakeable scent of rampant ram.
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4 comments:
My first introduction to Badger-Faced sheep - they look kindly.
Have just watched Countryfile on TV on this rainy day - they featured The Cambrian Mountains - I am sure I identified badger-faced sheep with their long tails!
All squeeky clean and bare-ly bright. And a bullseye painted on the hot spot?
I'd not ever thought of a sheep as kindly, Lindsay, apart from when they care for their lambs...I'll look at them afresh.
No bullseyes Paula - not one for raddles.
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