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Are these Morrit (sp?) sheep? &


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I'm not good on sheep breeds but the Castlemilk Moorit Society describes the head as

 

Light brown or moorit in colour, they have definite mouflon pattern markings to include white underparts around the eyes, lower jaw, belly, knees and inside lower leg and tail together with a rump patch.

 

Can't say about the dog without seeing it work.

Many Welsh Sheepdogs are red and I've known one that resembled the one in the photo, but equally I've known plenty of BCs of different colours that do too.

 

Pam

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Hello everyone,

 

In most of the sheep world, moorit is a color, not a specific breed of sheep. However, there is a breed in the UK called the Castlemilk Moorit, which was developed using Shetlands (and a few other primative breeds) that were moorit colored. Moorit colored sheep have brown hair on their heads and legs, and their fleeces are various shades of brown.

 

The sheep in the first two photos do not appear to be moorit (brown), but rather they appear to be black. Their fleeces appear to be silver, instead of being a taupe shade that would be consistant with being a moorit sheep. Their breed could be either Shetland or Icelandic, or perhaps a similar primative breed.

 

The sheep in the third photo appear to be of Swaledale or Blackface decent, so I imagine that it was taken in the UK. The dog could be a Welsh Collie, or it could be a Border Collie (or it could be neither). It is not likely that it is an English Shepherd, as the ES is an American breed.

 

I hope that this information helps.

 

Regards,

nancy

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Thanks everybody. I thought they were such handsome sheep, but they weren't identified as to type or breed. I'm getting a book called "Beautiful Sheep" from Amazon. Hope it will help me to identify the different sheep I see pics of on the Boards.

 

Beautiful sheep :rolleyes: The dog- I have no idea, maybe an English Shepherd? Where were the pics taken?

 

I don't know. It was on a photo hosting site that I use. No location given. I picked it up a couple of years ago.

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The sheep in the 3rd photo might be Swaledale-Border Leicester crosses. No horns, so not Swaledales. But they often cross them with Leicesters. The noses sure look Swaledale.

 

I'll bet that, if you asked the farmer, that's a "stock dog".

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I would have just called the sheep in the last photo mules. There are some who are completely white-faced, so not likely to be either Swaledale or Scottish blackface crosses. Their ears aren't quite as "dramatic" as what you see with the typical mule (blue-faced leicester) cross, but my bet is on some sort of mule.

 

Still no guesses on the dog, though if it's a recent photo, there's no reason not to think it's a border collie--the Aussie red coloring surely has been introduced in the UK through imports of Aussie show dogs....

 

J.

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the Aussie red coloring surely has been introduced in the UK through imports of Aussie show dogs....

 

J.

 

Yes, but it's rare here, although the head looks as if it could come from Australian/NZ lines. Maybe it's just been posed for the photo and wasn't working the sheep at all.

 

Pam

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Hey! I found him again! He's in Yorkshire, UK. And he is a working farm dog. His owner's name is John. No last name given.

post-10533-1262280531_thumb.jpg

 

The caption reads:

"Rusty" - He's my Welsh Collie and right hand dog! Just got the cows in and was 'posing' in the doorway making sure that no one tried to come back out again."

 

If you want to see more pics of farm life (and Rusty) go here:

http://www.pbase.com/rico101/image/21813646

 

PS. Haven't found the source of the two sheep pics yet, but I'll keep trying.

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