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
If dipping navels and trimming hoofs are the spinach and carrots of shepherding Soay sheep (as in, “eat your vegetables, dear”), the choice of a naming theme for our Soay is the dessert cart. Naming themes are about as close as most Soay shepherds get to unmitigated frivolity. They are fun to come up with, fun […]
Apparently a lot, but you sure couldn’t prove it by looking out in our fields. As near as I can tell, the only impact weather has on our flock is that when it gets cold, the sheep tuck their feet under and hunker down in the pasture. In the summer, the sheep drink a lot […]
Actually, it’s not an ounce, rather 2 cc’s, but “cc” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well, does it? If by any chance you do not vaccinate your Soay sheep against clostridial diseases, you should start now. This is one of the few areas where I cannot help nagging. The sight of an animal in […]
For generations before the internet replaced paper, boys happily frittered away countless hours on baseball cards, memorizing statistics and honing their negotiation skills. At the same time, if they were lucky, they were introduced by their grandfathers, as Steve was, to the insanely arcane world of scorecards, meticulously recording the details of a game with their stubby […]
I never can predict when owning Soay sheep will enrich my life in a new and different way. Last Wednesday an e-mail showed up out of the blue that read, in total: “Here is a photo of Yorkshire soay in the snow and being bottle fed.” That’s it, no signature, no mailing address, no explanation of why I was the beneficiary of the photographs, […]
Will Rogers once said, “The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what is the matter–he’s got to just know.” Will Rogers was right, but his vet almost certainly relied on a good thermometer as a substitute for a patient interview. When we have a listless lamb, one who is not up […]