Smartie is beautiful Jacob cross Shetland entire ram. He was born here on the 29th of March 2018. We bought his mum Peanut from a friend’s flock of sheep. Peanut was already pregnant to their Jacob ram and at the end of March 2018 Smartie appeared. He was the first lamb born here since the birth of our own daughter Elsie so he holds a special place in Elsie’s and my mind as he was the first lamb she ever met up close. Smartie grew up with our big docile Greyface Dartmoor cross Valais sheep Nora, Dorris & Alice – their gentle dopey nature has certainly rubbed off on him he is pretty placid and chilled out about life. Smartie has a massive fleece but during the winter months, he manages to completely trash his fleece whilst he is foraging for food. Because is fleece is so thick he is able to force his way through the undergrowth and spikey shrub in our rough fields without getting prickled. His fleece is full of so much debris by the time it comes to shearing that most of it is not saleable. We are slowly clearing these rough fields that the rams graze so eventually we might get a clean fleece from Smartie and his buddy Sven. In 2020 Smartie became a dad to 2 ewe lambs. One was born to a friend’s sheep Bluebell after Bluebell came for a romantic holiday with Smartie during the 2019/2020 winter months. His other daughter Raisin was born to Currant our elderly Shetland ewe. Raisin was a complete accident. One night Smartie got in with a group of 30/40 sheep that he shouldn’t have been with. Out of all those sheep, just one accidental pregnancy resulted and typically it was our oldest sheep Currant who had been naughty…
