Dylan patiently queued all day for his turn to be shorn. He is a Southdown, a now rare breed of sheep. Bred for maximum wool and meat with minimal waste. This beautiful thick fleece that Dylan is being relieved off has a market value of 45p per kilo. His, thicker than most, is around 3 kilos. Farmers are turning to breeds that malt rather than require shearing. Shearers are better off becoming bankers.
Spitalfields City farm aims to protect many of the UK's endangered indigenous farm animals. Goats, pigs, chickens, donkeys to name a few. They have loads of fun and educational activities. The mainly volunteers who run the farm rely on donations.
Since we don't have access to a sheep to observe up close, we opted to study wool instead. Mr. B was not all that excited about this particular challenge but once we started we had some fun with it. We did notice some sheep in a pasture over the weekend but that was about as close as we got to a real sheep.
We started off with the video on YouTube showing how wool is made and we also watched a few videos on shearing sheep. This led to a few more videos on spinning yarn from the wool roving. Now we have more of an appreciation for the wool yarn that goes into our hats and scarves.
With new interest, Mr. B completed his research into the Artiodactyla order and Bovidae family of animals, finishing off with a written narration of his investigation. Links found in the original challenge. If you want an interesting discussion, try to find some information online that discusses the Artiodactyla order and whales. It led to some interesting thoughts in our home. (You can Google "Cetartiodactyla".)
Lastly we looked at wool under the microscope...amazing to see up close. I encourage you to give it a try if you have a microscope.
Sometimes our nature study is not of the outdoor variety but I knew that when I included sheep in this series of challenges. We chose a rainy day to complete this study and it was fun to think about wool when we were out on our snowshoe hike recently. Nature study can connect many real life experiences if we give it a chance. I look forward to seeing if any other families took this challenge and found a way to make it successful with their family.
If you want to look at other mammal using the Outdoor Hour Challenges, you can find a list here on this page: Outdoor Hour Challenges - Mammals
You may also be interested in another Winter Mammal Challengefound here on the Handbook of Nature Study.
Inside Preparation Work: 1. Read pages 270-274 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 66). Since most of us do not have access to a real sheep to study up close, use this information as preparation for any future encounters with sheep. For this challenge you can spend time learning about how man uses the sheep’s wool to make fabric. Make sure to have at least one item made of wool for the children to observe (or a ball of wool yarn will work as well). 2. View these videos on YouTube.com: Sheep Dogs in Training and How It Is Made-Wool.
Outdoor Hour Time: If you have the ability to observe a real sheep and make direct observations, this is the best way to learn about sheep. If you don’t have access to sheep, there are several alternative ideas. 1. Take a walk outdoors wearing a wool hat, sweater, mittens, coat, or scarf. Enjoy the warmth and be grateful for sheep. 2. Observe another mammal and compare it to the sheep: size, fur/hair/wool, feet, teeth, eyes, tail.
Follow-Up Activity: 1. Spend a few minutes after your outdoor time to review your experience. If you found anything of interest, make sure to talk about it and look up any additional information in the Handbook of Nature Study or at your next library visit. 2. View wool and hair with a hand lens. You can sketch what you see in your nature journal or on the back of the sheep notebook page. Ebook users: Complete the sheep notebook page with information from the Handbook of Nature Study.
3. Advanced study: The Handbook of Nature Study suggests writing about the method by which wool is made into cloth. Research at the library or on the internet and then give a summary. 4. Advanced study: Research the Artiodactyla order and Bovidae family of mammals (links below). Use resources from your public library or the internet.
An ancient right dating back to the middle ages allowing the freemen of London city to drive sheep over London Bridge free of charge was exercised by the Lime Street Ward Club in aid of the Red Cross on Saturday. All freemen were invited to the special event where this special breed of sheep "stufftus onwheelera lifesizium" crossed the bridge finishing with a race at twightlight. In addition to the fastest sheep awards were also given to best of breed and the highly coveted black sheep award.
The building of old London Bridge was completed in 1209. Yesterday the current London Bridge was closed to traffic to hold the 8ooth anniversary fayre. Part of the festivities included a sheep drive. The origins go back to medieval times when the freemen were permitted to drive their sheep across the bridge bringing them into market without having to pay the toll.
We have had our eye out for critter prints but the only one we have seen that has been clear enough to really recognize is this dog print along our walking trail. We are not giving up though, the winter is still young.
From the Handbook of Nature Study, page 254: "The dog's feet are much more heavily padded than those of the cat, because in running he must not stop to save his feet. Hounds often return from a chase with bleeding feet, despite the heavy pads, but the wounds are usually cuts between the toes. The claws are heavy and are not retractile; thus, they afford a protection to the feet when running, and they are also used for digging out game which burrows into the ground. They are not used for grasping prey like those of the cat and are used only incidentally in fighting, while the cat's claws are the most important weapons in her armory." The Handbook of Nature Study has many suggestions for observations of dogs. The section starts on page 254 and ends on page 260.
The most exciting news is that our birdfeeders have been very busy. We even identified a new bird. It was the Cassin's finch. It looks very much like the purple finch but the coloring on the head is much more pronounced. I also found a great new bird identification site that not only is an online field guide, it also has a button to hear the bird songs online. Eureka! I have wanted to start to learn to identify birds by their songs so this is perfect.
Have you ever seen a guard llama? We were out on a new section of our local walking trail and this is the scene that we observed. My son told me that he had seen on a nature show that a llama will actually guard a herd of sheep. I had never heard of this before so I had to come home and research it. He was right! Here is an article that I found on this subject. Guard Llamas You learn something new every day.
There is no information in the Handbook of Nature Study on llamas...not surprised at that. There is a section starting on page 270 that talks about sheep.
From page 273: "The dog is the ancient enemy of sheep: and even now, after hundreds of years of domestication, some of our dogs will revert to savagery and chase and kill sheep.....The collie, or sheep dog, has been bred so many years as the special caretaker of sheep, that a beautiful relationship has been established between these dogs and their flocks."
Well, that sort of catches you up with our nature study for the past week or two. We are still busy catching up on our drawings in our nature journals for animals we have seen. It is a really good activity for these long, cold afternoons.
Dylan patiently queued all day for his turn to be shorn. He is a Southdown, a now rare breed of sheep. Bred for maximum wool and meat with minimal waste. This beautiful thick fleece that Dylan is being relieved off has a market value of 45p per kilo. His, thicker than most, is around 3 kilos. Farmers are turning to breeds that malt rather than require shearing. Shearers are better off becoming bankers.
