Horny

The rare-breed sheep have returned to the university's Botanic Garden for the winter.

 

I asked the management about this guy, and here's what I got, verbatim -

 

"Hi Bob, that's our Winston (so named as his predecessor, Napoleon, was named after a famous male figure, he was born the year Churchill was voted "Greatest Britton ever" in 2002) He's a Manx Loaghtan, as are all the lighter brown ones. Some of the darker ones are Hebridean, but some are Manx x heb of course...

I'm sure you'll be able to google it now you know what they are, but basically the manx is a rare breed, down to about 20 in the 1970's. Primitive sheep like this are great for "conservation grazing to increase biodiversity" as they eat 'owt, don't tent to suffer with problems like foot rot the big fat white ones can, and don't require much shelter, if any, even for lambing, just behind a bush out of the wind is enough. Of course for meat production they are not so good and the wool is quite a short staple, unlike the purpose bred "wool" sheep, which also hold onto their fleeces, unlike a primitive breed which of course can shed its fleece in the summer, so when we do shear them it's just to give them a helping hand as being stuck in a field means they can't wander off up a fell or mountain to cooler grazing. Being a "wild" sheep although they can be controlled to an extent with a sheep dog and do have the "flock together gene" they will also stand there ground and put their horns to good use....

We send our fleeces off to someone who spins, the unusable "bits and bobs" are used to line our hanging baaarskets....

There you go,

Cheers, Mike"

Done