Just been mustering sheep down, to sort through them before the rams go out. A bit like the cattle any ewes that don't quite come up to scratch get put to a terminal sire -a ram bred for meat. In our case we use a Southdown as we can tell the difference in the lambs at tailing and weaning. The crossbred lambs have faces that look a bit like teddy bears, with brown shadings on legs and around the nose, and little round ears. They are quite cute at that stage.
After he's sorted the ewes up "the Boss" then gets the lovely job of dagging the dirty ones. Dagging is chopping the faeces off around the tails and down the legs - a lovely job as you can imagine. The worst ones to do are the 2ths as they leap around.
A bit about the Perendale sheep breed.
The Perendale was developed by Professor Peren at Massey university in 1956 as an "Easy Care" dual purpose Sheep, by crossing the Romney and Cheviot. (Romney ewes to Cheviot rams)
They have proved to be ideal for steep hill country, hardy - suiting colder, high rainfall areas, with a lean (low fat) heavyweight carcass, growing coarse wool (carpet) at 28-37 microns. The Perendale is alert, active and quick moving, intelligent and must be handled quietly. They score as the easiest sheep to deal with, except for handling in yards. so it's not just us that have them jumping out.
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