Tuesday, December 11, 2007

News for lovers of sheep....'The dogged owd ewes'

John and Heather fetched up the other night with a lorry load of sheep for our field. 20 plus ewes, extracted from the flock over at Fir House, stumbled down the ramp and off into the darkness. They are all due to lamb in January and need a bit of tlc; extra food and such. (3 troughs arrived with them.) They are indeed a sorry bunch and remind me in a way of one of those wartime regiments where some wag, to while away the hours, had gathered together groups of men with similar characteristics - red-hair or facial scars for example. It may be an apocryphal tale, but I would like it think it true. These unfortunates mostly have bad feet.

John described them as ‘dogged owd ewes’ – I wouldn’t have thought doggedness was an ovine trait – but what do I know?

The prospect of food, any food, excites them though and bad feet or not they come running. Here they do show determination. There was much pushing, shoving and head butting in order to snarf a mouthful of hen food yesterday. Today they are enjoying the sun.

1 comment:

Hannah Velten said...

Only just seen this blog...how are the girls now? I do HATE to see sheep with bad feet - there is no excuse, so I hope with a trim and a bit of extra grub in them they are now prancing through the morning frost. How many lambs are you expecting next year from them? Mootia x