I’ve posted about leadersheep before and now I have heard from an Icelandic shepherd with more information. “Flannelberry” – who started a blog Flannelberry Farm (Small-scale farming, self sufficiency and all things considered…) – writes:
I am a shepherd with an Icelandic flock and came across your blog while googling “leadersheep”.
There are indeed leadersheep – a specific line within the more generic “Icelandic Sheep”. They’re lovely brilliant things, bred for brains rather than meat or fibre. They look a little different – narrower in most respects and more primitive somehow – but you would not want to have a flock without one.
More about them here –
Icelandic Leader Sheep
Of course they are “real”. Was there ever any doubt?
In New Zealand where I used to live on a sheep farm we always knew how much the sheep were self managed. And they were not even Icelandic but mostly Suffolks and Dorset Downs. (It was a lambing farm.)
The idea that sheep are inherently dim is a human fantasy and conceit.
Didn’t Monty Python have a sketch about clever sheep – nesting in trees?
Now there’s a way to pull the wool over human eyes.
Check out “Ewe Tube” on YouTube for great sheep videos and The Grand Sheep National race.
Fact is – intelligence has been bred out of sheep.
Watch the race here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sHp_vHofvY
- John