Until the beginning of the year we had some beautiful DORSET SHEEP in the field. They arrived last summer with their lambs, carefully numbered but rather random in their choice of maternal feeding station. They had a guest to stay, the RAM. Then they were left to themselves for the winter before being relocated to allow the grass to recover.
This time last year our son’s wedding took place in the field, and it had been smartened up for the purpose (Mrs RH and I had our wedding reception in the same field nearly… erm… x0 years ago). This spring, the grass has grown lush and replete with buttercups, ready for the next ovine mowers to graze. They arrived last weekend, 6 freshly shorn adult Jacobs with their 10 lambs between them. Here are some studies of the one I want (perversely) to call Daisy, with her lambs…
ROLLING HARBOUR GALLERY 
Lovely sheep, especially the black lamb. When you talk about random feeding stations did you mean the lambs suckled from any sheep? I’ve not watched sheep a lot but I thought the mothers got shirty with other lambs that got a bit too close. Amelia
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Yes I do. Mothers & their lambs were numbered the same (including with twins), but often one of the twins 2s would suckle from mother 1 and so on. I never worked out exactly which mothers tolerated which lambs that were not their own, but we often saw number mismatches when lambs were feeding.
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That’s really interesting. Perhaps they get so downtrodden feeding two lambs that they don’t care who they feed.
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Just what I thought. 2 lambs scamper over (a 1 and a 2, say), latch on at the back end and begin vigorously applying themselves to the task in hand… As long as there’s enough to go round all the lambs. (And anyway, sheep can’t count).
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