Cameroon Sheep

The last "lamb" roast I had was from a Cameroon sheep that a friend keeps & butchers himself. I thought he had been over kind by trimming off every bit of fat on the leg joint but only later did I find out this was not the case. They are a lot less fatty.

In fact, they look more like goats than sheep, have the advantage that they don't need to be shorn. The other week the friend was making a case for us keeping some of them. I would straight away but Angie won't pull. Shame as we could start to enjoy some benefits of having a "GV" (Großvieheinheit or Large Animal Unit or 500kg of animal weight) & thus enjoying tax breaks on all sorts of things from road tax on my tractor, to water rates & our personal health insurance rates.

Our land is officially classed as agricultural but benefits only available if we have at least 1 GV which makes, or potentially could make, a profit. We indeed have two GVs in the form of our horses but as we don't make money from them we can't count them. We also have about 30 chickens, but you need 320 chickens to make one GV. A sheep is 0.1GV so if we had 10 we could be in business.

Above all we have the space & the sheep would save us a lot of grass mowing. Have to speak to the friend to keep reminding Angie.

This small herd has been about ever since I can remember moving here in 2002 & once I spoke to one of the owners who also confirmed how easy they are to keep. You can see from the Geotag that they are in a very remote place & not near humans. Just need the barn and a good fox fence when the lambs are about.

Taken on the evening walk with Luna.