Welcome to The Chronicles. I hope you will enjoy my posts about the joys of raising the oldest breed of sheep in the world -- the always intriguing, easy-to-raise Soay sheep. With few exceptions, posts contain what I hope is useful information interspersed with a bit of whimsy. Feel free to comment on anything you find here. If you want to send me a private message, that's okay, too. Send your note to the address on the "contact us" page of our main website (***saltmarshranch-dot-com). Meanwhile, enjoy The Soay Sheep Chronicles! Priscilla
As promised, it is time to share recipes that showcase the mild-flavored, lean taste of Soay meat. Let me set the stage. When we decided to start eating Soay sheep meat, I cheerfully headed off to the bookstore and the kitchen stores to get myself a couple of good lamb cookbooks. To my dismay, there […]
Just as there are widely varying opinions about when to put breeding groups together, whether to breed a spring ewe lamb her first year, how to manage weaning and at what age, so too are there widely divergent views on whether to eat animals from your flock. The good news, of course, is that the […]
Yesterday one of our neighbors knocked on our door, distressed that a pregnant Suffolk ewe on his nearby farm had become lame about four days earlier and, instead of getting better, she has declined to the point of not eating. The neighbor was hoping our experience with Soay sheep would carry over into helping him […]
No sooner had I filed the post on how to make Christmas stockings for the shepherd on your Christmas list than a hue and cry arose from the pasture. The Soay are outraged that our no-count guardian dogs (from the sheep’s perspective, not ours) get Christmas feed bags and the sheep don’t. I tried to explain to them that they […]
When I started this blog, it was my intention to write only about subjects on which Steve and I felt we had a basic grasp of the research or professional writing about the problem confronting us. This time, I am stumped and so is Steve, and we can rely only on our own observations of a number of our Soay sheep. […]
Looking for a gift for your favorite shepherd, especially a slightly clumsy one? Can you sew a straight seam? I have just the one-hour project for you. Experienced shepherds, of Soay sheep or otherwise, and almost any do-it-yourselfer will sympathize with what I am about to say. When you feed your livestock guardian dogs in the pasture, there is nothing […]