Herdwicks.

For the first time in a long while I have had to do a walk to the bins when prepping the Lodge.  As always I took the camera, however I forgot to take off the wide angle lens and put on the macro.  So the blip is of some Herdwick sheep in a field down the lane.

For those not familiar with the breed there are a few things you might be interested to know, so here goes.  The Herdwick is peculiar to the Lake District, yes a few are kept elsewhere but the majority by far are in the Lakes.  They are what is known locally as "a black ground sheep" i.e. they are best up on the heather and peat rather than down in the green fields.  So what are these ones doing in a green field you ask.  Some farms choose to bring flocks down to the lowland for winter.  Then they go into lambing in better condition than if they had wintered on the fells.

The shot shows some other interesting points about the breed and sheep farming.  Firstly the colour of the Herdwicks.  They are born black and lighten with age.  The two in the thumbnail show one around 18 months old and one maybe three.  The other point is many of them show "raddle" marks.  Well it was raddle once upon a time.  To know which sheep had been mated the tups (rams) had their bellies smeared with raddle, red in colour it was probably a mixture of ground haematite (lots in and around the Lakes) and an oil or fat.  Now they have a harness fitted with a coloured crayon.  The crayons can be changed starting with a light colour e.g. yellow and changing every three weeks getting darker.  Why?  Well if a sheep doesn't "hold to the tup" in the first oestrus cycle you can check if she has subsequently or if she is barren.  Yellow "raddle marks are clear on some of these.  Finally for fell sheep the tups were put into the flock on Bonfire night (5th November) to start the lambing season on the 1st April