Sheep on steroids?

[nancy]

We just returned from Yorkshire and saw one flock of the strangest sheep. We were in hawes, at the top of Wensleydale, and down along the River Ure. In one field, we were with these odd sheep.

 

They were huge - looked like woolly barrels. Their head were more like those of dogs - huge labs or even rotties. They walked like hippos! The woman we met walking her dog just after that field said she thought they were Clydesdales, but our landlady laughed and said that was not the name. But she couldn't remember what they were. They are definitely ugly - and definitely for meat.

 

Anyone have any idea what our hippo sheep really are?

[juliepoudrier]

Could they have been texels? Just a wild guess really, but I always thought texels had dog-like heads, for lack of a better description....

 

It might be tedious, but you could scroll through some of the breeds with UK-sounding names on the Oklahoma State breeds of livestock site and see if any look like what you saw.

 

J.

[Bill Fosher]

My guess would be TExels.

[nancy]

That sure could be the breed - if they waddle like hippos.

 

I was sure we each took at least one photo of these oddities. But I can't find them.

 

It was at the end of a long day. We had scrambled from Gayle to the top of Wetherfell - in a gale. Looking down on fighter jets screaming down Wensleydale. Then around the top, along the Roman read and down through Burtersett and back to Hawes. And that was the main walk. We'd already done about 4 miles before breakfast.

 

It was 5 nights in Gayle. In a 1797 house on the Gayle Road- our bedroom window was over a field of Swaledale ewes and lambs (and a family of rabbits), looking down to Gayle Beck and St. Margaret's church in Hawes. The Wensleydale Creamery was just on the left.