On Friday I excitedly went off to the Royal Highland Show. I was working on the Scottish Wildlife Trust stand where it was great to get to know some of my colleagues better and spread the word about our work. Everyone was very welcoming and passionate about raising the profile of the Trust.However, I make no secret of the fact the the Shetland Judging was the biggest highlight of my day. I had hoped to enter some of my own sheep but financially and logistically this just wasn't possible, so I just went along to learn and was very glad that I did!
Showing is a game. You play the game, you get the results. Speaking to the breeders showing before judging commenced was interesting: "we've looked at who the judge is an selected animals to bring along in accordance with what we think his preference will be."
At the RHS this year, the judge was a native Shetlander and so, taking this into account, most of the entries were large white sheep! Of course Shetland fans have all heard of how the patterned Shetland sheep were in danger of being lost in their native land, and yesterday I was told that there seem to be alternate predudices on either side of the Scotland/England border. In England there is a strong preference for coloured sheep (but not necessarily spotted in most cases) while in Scotland you see many more white Shetlands.
Plenty of white sheep in the Group of Three class.
And in the Ram Lamb class
Just to show that I am not totally predudiced against white sheep, I quite liked this white shearling ram of Tom Findlay's
And this, the Reserve Champion Shetland owned by Gilbert Meikle
But in the end the Champion of the day was Moira Morrison's ewe. Well done on a fabulous acheivement.
I shant go into the ins and outs of how the judging panned out. Some folk were concerned that coloured Shetlands were not even being looked at, while others defended this saying that a crofter on Shetland needs the most marketable animal possible and that will produce a good amount of meat, rather than just a rack to hang a fabulous fleece on or something pretty to look at! I will say this: it must be a huge honour for one of your sheep to be given the title of Champion Shetland at the Royal Highland Show... but I won't be swapping any of my girls for one like this, nor changing my opionions about what I like! But then variety is the spice of life... and not all Shetland judges think alike either.
I did find some coloured sheep to talk to.
She doesn't look very impressed with being in a pen for four days!
Best coloured Shetland went to Robin McEwan-King's handsome tup.
I'd like to say thank you to everyone from the Shetland Sheep Society for making me feel so welcome. I really enjoyed speaking (and drinking :o) with you all and really appreciated all those who took the time to give advice and pass on some of their masses of Shetland Sheep knowledge. I'll look forward to the next time we meet.
We've had some wonderful weather recently (although interspersed with heavy rain which is really slowing down the sheep shearing process!) and Chris and I decided to catch some sunshine down at the Faery Isles and see if we could find some fish for dinner.
