Ronnie is a North Ronaldsay sheep who came to us aged 6 months in October
1999, along with his friend Reginald. He was kindly donated to us by a
breeder from Northumberland.
He has a creamy-coloured coat and a grey-black face, and a pair of
backward-curving horns. He is usually one of the first to the gate to say
hello to visitors! On Gyrwe we keep a variety of primitive, unimproved
breeds of sheep which are as close as we can get in size and appearance to
the sheep that would have been hept in the Anglo-Saxon period.
This small, short-tailed primitive breed is very specialised. It is native
to the Orkney Islands, where the sheep live on seaweed for much of the year.
When they are moved elsewhere great care must be taken with their diet;
because they have adapted to eating seaweed, which is lacking in copper (a
trace element in the diet) they are very susceptible to copper poisoning. We
carefully check all the food that is given to the sheep because of this. We
can make sure that they still get all the trace elements and minerals that
they require in their diet by adding dried seaweed powder to their feed or
spreading calcified seaweed on the land as a fertiliser.
The Ronaldsay fleece is silky and fine and is valued for hand spinning. The
breed comes in a wide combination of colours, mostly grey and white, but
also black and moorit (moor-red). Every year we hand-shear the sheep, and
the wool is used for spinning demonstrations or sold to hand-spinning
enthusiasts. The breed is mostly horned, but a small percentage of females
are naturally polled, meaning that they do not grow horns.
Sheep were valued in the Anglo-Saxon period for meat, wool and skin, and it
is also possible to milk sheep if they are trained correctly.
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