[piggy]

After all advice good and bad i bit the bullet and got some soays,was starting to have doubts after reading alot of bad reviews but boy am i glad i didnt listen,got them sunday week ago and have had no problems so far,no escapes although only being on lawn with electric tape,they were pretty wild when i got them very scatty and some very very thin,what a transformation they have put on weight which was my main worry i can now touch them and the kids whlist in the above ground pool splash them and they love it.

[Roxy]

Sounds like you made the right decision!!  Are they breeding ewes?  How many have you got?

[piggy]

The advert was for 15 but when i got there which took us 1hr 50 there were 17, 1 ram,15 ewes some 1 year some 3 years and a little ram lamb from this year that nobody wanted,they sold this years lambs for £50 each.They are all reg.

[Shnoowie]

Good buy, Piggy.  They sound like a nice little flock - ours didn't appreciate being splashed with pool water, though they aren't Soays.
Do you have any pictures?

[welshboy]

Where are you Piggy I would be interested in the ram lamb -I iam in West wales

[Roxy]

Goodness, you have a proper little flock then!!

[dixie]

try rattling a bucket everday with some feed, they will soon become your best friend!! good luck withem!

[piggy]

Am in Suffolk
Here are some of them.

[Fergie]

Lovely photos - I'm very fond of my Soays, and they are full of character.

[Fleecewife]

Hi Fergie. People might be interested to hear about Black Prince and how he looks after his ewes and protects them from the fox.
Hi Piggy - beautiful Soays.  Interesting that you have some piebalds too.  Most of ours are either piebald or solid black. Had to buy in a mouflon just so people could see the 'usual' colour type.  I love them all 

[shrekfeet]

that's a reasonable number of sheep. How much grazing do you have?

[piggy]

They are being lawn mowers for me at the moment,we have 6 acres in all.

[Fergie]

Hi Fergie. People might be interested to hear about Black Prince and how he looks after his ewes and protects them from the fox.

Hi Fleecewife,

My fields are bounded on one side with woodland which is a nature reserve & full of foxes, so we are constantly under attack.  This spring we lost 4 Hebridean lambs to foxes (and 2 more chickens a fortnight ago).

Since the Soays prefer our top field, which is partially in the woods, with a visible fox path through one corner, I decided to keep our Soay tup Black Prince with the ewes since he appeared to be quite protective of his flock.  He took his responsibilities very seriously, behaving a bit like a cockerel with hens, and kept them in order.  He kept them rounded up in a group & would face up to any intruder.  I was worried about how he would behave with small lambs, but he stayed close to them all the time and we did not lose any at all.  His only flaw is that he insisted on tasting the food trough first before he allowed any girls to have a feed!

We took him out & moved him to the boy's field after shearing, but will go back after bonfire night - I'm proud of his behavior!

In contrast, our Hebridean tup lost interest once he had done his duty & happily moved back to the boy's field after a month or so.  Different characters behaved differently.

John

[Fleecewife]

It's fascinating that Soays still show such primitive behaviour.  We don't leave our tups in after the month of tupping but after your experience with Gladstone Black Prince Fergie I'm tempted to give it a go with Backforest Cedric and a couple of ewes next winter.
For the trough business, that could be sorted by giving them a longer stretch of trough so the ewes could eat at one end while he pigs it at the other.  He doesn't need all that winter feed but they do.  Our ewes spend feeding time running from one end of the troughs to the other anyway, according to the pecking order and I have to watch that the less dominant ewes get enough feed.

Piggy, when you have a spare few minutes (which can stretch to hours  ) you will get endless fun watching your new Soays and their fascinating behaviours and interactions.  They will calm down gradually as they get used to you and particularly once they have lambed with you, which establishes your place as 'home'.

[piggy]

Fleecewife do you have many of the Backforest line as i was looking through the reg certificates and have found a few Backforset.I have Backforest Gayle,Gorse,Gemma and Gina.
Names that come up in the lines are Backforset Claudius,Dynamite,Beth,Esther,Backforest,Elysium and Empress.