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A subject that comes up quite often here is our sheep teeth, and you might wonder why? So, we thought it was about time we brought you a well overdue Fact Friday and an explanation! But to begin with, assuming you’re not all ovine dentists, a little background.


Adult sheep have 32 permanent teeth which are divided into two sections. They have eight incisors in the lower front jaw and twenty-four molars. Sheep have no teeth in the front part of their upper jaw, and this instead consists of a dense, hard, fibrous pad that aids in grabbing and chewing grass. They also use their tongue to wrap, tear and chew on fibrous vegetable materials.


At birth, lambs usually have no teeth. Within a week after birth, their milk teeth appear in the front lower jaw and by two months, eight in all, have erupted. These temporary teeth are replaced by permanent incisors, which appear in pairs, starting with the two central teeth, followed by one on either side at intervals, until the eight temporary teeth have been replaced. During this time when their teeth are growing, sheep are referred to by the number of permanent incisors they have, such as two-tooth, four-tooth, six-tooth, eight-tooth or "full mouth" at around three to four years old.


The next stage after full mouth is known as "broken mouth" as their incisors will now start to spread out, wear down, break, or even fall out. This is just natural wear and tear through constant chewing of fibrous grasses, and eventually, we see what is known as a “gummer”. These sheep have no incisors left at all and are simply left with their molars, and yes, you’ve guessed it, their hard gums.


These are the sheep who are quite a topic of conversation at Brockswood as now that many of our residents are reaching old age, we are now altering many of our care routines to take these individuals into account. These sheep would very likely be culled in some settings where individual care would not be possible, but here we will simply alter their diets and care plans. We keep a close eye on the body condition of each of these sheep to ensure none are losing weight and are still able to take in both the right amounts of food, but also the same levels of nutrients. This can involve feeding separately, moving into smaller groups, feeding shorter fibres, making up mash feeds, and providing supplements, as well as health checks from both us and our veterinarians.


You will have met many of these sheep and not even know anything was different about them!

It is just one of several issues we are working with as our residents grow older, making us think outside of the box, as many of these animals simply don’t live this long outside of sanctuaries. There is a little research as a result and so we are amazing residents here who have a lot to teach us!

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We know we missed our last couple of Fact Fridays! With us so busy shearing our sheep residents last Friday and the heat of the previous Friday (our hottest day of the year so far) we needed to rest our brains! We’re back this week and inspired by shearing day, we thought we’d tell you a little about our woolly friends.

So, why do we shear sheep? Firstly, this is a need that we Humans have created! Like other domestic animals, we have bred sheep for different traits to develop the breeds we have today - it is believed that selective breeding for woolly sheep began around 6000 BCE. Ancient sheep bear little resemblance to today’s wool sheep, selectively bred for thousands of years for their woolly fleeces after we discovered the many uses that we can put their wool to, everything from clothing ourselves to making sails for ships. The Romans even started to breed them for specific colour traits.


Wild sheep naturally shed their coarse winter coats, scratching their bodies against trees, and rubbing away their extra fluff as the weather warms up - you may have seen our Soays looking a little worse for wear in the spring; these are an ancient breed and naturally shed, unlike our other rescued sheep which are all wool breeds and cannot regulate their excess fleece on their own.

Soay Sheep

So why do we need to take those fleeces off if we’re not keeping them for their wool? The answer is simply for their welfare! Wool is nature’s best insulator, protecting sheep from the extreme cold in the winter months. However, continuing to wear this thick, heavy fleece during the summer can be uncomfortable and stressful, increasing the risk of overheating, parasite infestation such as flystrike, and becoming ‘rigged’ (stuck on their back due to the added weight of their fleece) – yes, there’s truth to this tale you have all heard, sheep can get stuck on their back and as we discussed in our earlier Bloat Fact, this can kill them if not turned over!


Very early sheep farmers tried many different methods of removing wool and sadly some were (and in some places, still are) more painful for the sheep than others, such as stone scraping tools knapped from flint, or ‘rooing’ which involves simply plucking out the wool. We have sheep to thank for the invention of scissors and archaeologists have even discovered beautifully crafted shears in Ancient Egyptian tombs!


Here at the sanctuary, we work with a skilled shearer (using modern painless techniques) who’s known our residents for several years and treats our sheep respectfully and as individuals – he’s even learned some of their names. Our animal care team are also there throughout the process to reassure them and assist when needed.

But not to worry! Just like your hair, sheep wool continues to grow after it has been trimmed and will start to grow back ready for those colder months, growing about six millimetres per month (this varies with breed, nutrition, and environment), and so our sheep need to be sheared annually – some woollier breeds are even shorn twice a year!


We have so many more woolly facts to share with Ewe, but we’ll save those for another Friday. If you have any burning questions you’d like us to answer, we’d love to feature a fact of yours – please send them our way.

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A few weeks ago, we spent some time at Cotwall End Nature Reserve surveying the many different kinds of wildlife that take sanctuary there. Over just the two days we managed to survey over 200 flora and fauna, and we have so far found over 100 species!

View our iNaturalist Project page to see what we found.

Thank you to everyone that took part in the Bioblitz to help us explore Cotwall End and its wide range of habitats. We definitely learnt more about what signs of wildlife to look out for during Spring, and found some species that we haven’t heard of before! Please go ahead and upload your observations to iNaturalist if you haven’t already.

It’s not too late to take part, there are some observations in our project that haven’t been identified yet! If you think you know the species of any of the flora and fauna found during the BioBlitz, you can suggest or comment an identification under the observation.


You will need to create an iNaturalist account using this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/signup and all the observations can be found under our project in the link above.

Please note: You must be 13 or over to create an account and must otherwise have your parent’s or guardian’s permission.


Dates for your Diary!

We will be hosting another BioBlitz in the Summer on the 13th and 14th of August. More details of this event will be shared nearer the time, but you are welcome to join the new iNaturalist project here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/cotwall-end-summer-bioblitz-2022


Don't forget that you can log your sightings here at the sanctuary all your round, we have so far recorded 107 species here and would love your help to record and identify the many more we share our site with during your visits.

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