I'm glad if my experiences can be of help to others
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No, sorry I wasn't very clear about using the spray bottle
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We spray a line down the back, a short burst down behind each front armpit, a drop at each horn, a short bit in front of the back armpits, a horseshoe around the tail and up each leg, both sides of the tail and up under the perineum ie between the back legs. On wethers before the scrotum has dropped off we might put a tiny dab there, and on a mature tup we do a small bit around the penis. All of this not exceeding the dose for their size, but it's so much easier to be accurate with the sprayer bottle
We would bring our Soay in with the rest of the flock for dagging, but usually the only bit needing done would be some tails, where lumps of hardened dung need to be removed - not exactly dagging, and sometimes quite hard to get off, maybe needing a bucket of warm soapy water. Sometimes, as with all breeds, the bit around a tups penis might need a trim too.
Because Soays have such short, neat fleece it is easy to see if there's a problem except when it's under those lumps on the tail, and equally by using the spray bottle it's easy to get Crovect to stick.
For other management, we have always treated our Soay in with our other breeds, which in the past have included Jacobs and Shetlands, although now we have mostly Hebrideans with just a few ancient Soay ewes and one Shetland. We no longer use Heptavac but that is a very personal decision we have taken and mostly I would recommend that if you have started then carry on. For worming, we follow the plan set out by The Mordun Foundation, where we only treat where necessary ie if we see a squity sheep we treat that one, but we also do the whole flock pre-tupping. So they all get done once a year but any with a problem get done as required. Mordun also recommend that you
don't move newly wormed sheep onto new pasture as you are increasing the likelihood of wormer resistance building up. Our flock is currently closed which helps with disease and worm prevention but if we were to buy in or borrow any stock we would quarantine them for 3 weeks, after worming them on arrival.
For handling Soay - they can be very flighty but they are also very curious, which you can exploit to make them easier to handle. Ours became so tame that they always had their heads in our pockets looking for treats - except the tups, mentioned elsewhere. You need to be very calm when handling Soay, and get them used to you by walking around in their pasture frequently without doing anything to them, so they don't automatically associate you with trouble. Soays are especially good at reading human body language so there's no pretending you haven't got the foot shears in your pocket, or that you are not intending to catch them when you are, however nonchalant you think you are being
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