#Sheep – Page 4 – Northwest Nature and History

Spring on the Upland Farm

Spring is rapidly approaching and it’s the busiest time for our upland farmers. The dairy and cattle farmers will be welcoming the year’s new calves, while lamb farmers will up at all hours helping their ewes deliver lambs. Our upland moors and pastures have looked the same way for centuries, and this is largely becauseContinue reading “Spring on the Upland Farm”

Baa, Ram, Ewe! An A to Z of sheep terminology

This is a basic A to Z of sheep terminology, it’s by no means exhaustive though as there are hundreds of obscure and technical terms that farmers and shepherds use, let me know if you can think of any that aren’t here. Aries The sign of the sheep, and the second half of its scientificContinue reading “Baa, Ram, Ewe! An A to Z of sheep terminology”

Yain Tain Tethera

Yain Tain Tethera ‘Yain Tain Tethera’ is a rhyming system of counting historically used by shepherds in the Bowland area, it is the local dialectic version of an ancient counting system with many variations around the British isles collectively known as ‘Yan Tan Tethera’, here is the Bowland version; Yain=1Tain=2Eddera=3Peddera=4Pit=5Tayter=6Layter=7Overa=8Covera=9Dix=10Yain-a-dix=11Tain-a-dix=12Eddera-a-dix=13Peddera-a-dix=14Bumfit=15Yain-a-bumfit=16Tain-a-bumfit=17Eddera-a-bumfit=18Peddera-a-bumfit=19Jiggit=20 Most of these ways ofContinue reading “Yain Tain Tethera”