Wolf Trust Sheep - Sheep Subsidies - Depredation - Highland Farming - Highland Sheep - Highland History Page Summary Highland sheep live outdoors all year, converting poor soil into money, and preventing wild plants regenerating. Web Address www.wolftrust.org.uk Email Address Wolf Trust

Highland Sheep Mouflon Mouflon are believed to be the progenitors of domestic sheep (Jewell et al 1991). They live in herds in mountain terrain. Being agile rock climbers, when predators threaten, they clamber up rocks to escape.   A mouflon. Mouflon have brown, short-haired coats. Their large spiralling horns are treasured by trophy shooters. Courtesy Edd Bissell, Hidden View Farm, USA Mouflon became rare but have been reintroduced into central Europe and are the only wild sheep in Europe today. People were breeding mouflon at least 7,000 years ago and they became the sheep we now know. There are now over 200 breeds of sheep worldwide. Highland Sheep The chief breeds of sheep in the Highlands are the Scottish Blackface and North Country Cheviot (Scottish Office 1998).    Descendants of the mouflon. Scottish Blackface sheep on left & North Country Cheviot sheep on right. Courtesy British Wool Marketing Board. Hardiness Blackface and Cheviots are noted for their hardiness, productivity and mothering ability on bleak, wet, cold and windswept hills. In the Highlands they are expected to live off the hill all year with little or no help in severe weather. Purpose The main purpose of sheep in the Highlands is to produce lambs with the lowest labour and feed costs. The Blackface and Cheviots convert marginal agricultural land into money. Lambs, when still very little, are sold to farms on lower-lying ground to fatten for the consumer market. Old ewes may also be sold to the lower-lying farms. Conditions are easier there and they can continue to produce more lambs. Feeding Habits Sheep are insatiable feeders. Where they over-graze there is little plant life left to grow. The three million sheep in the Highlands (SEERAD 2001), plus the huge number of deer in Scotland (800,000 red, roe, fallow and sika deer) maintained by man, are among the major factors degrading the Highlands, holding back the flourishing of herbs and trees making the Highland hills stripped and naked. References Jewell P A & Bullock D: Ungulates: Orders Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla. In Corbet G & Harris S (eds) (1991): The handbook of British mammals. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford. Scottish Office (1998): Agriculture in Scotland. Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department. SEERAD (2001): Agriculture Facts and Figures. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. Scottish Office Publications. Page revised 3.02