Swaledale

Tarn House Farm

Welcome to adopt-a-sheep.com

This web site is an educational resource designed to give information to anyone interested in sheep, but in particular, hill or fell sheep and how they are farmed. It is full of factual information - for instance did you know that all the sheep you see on the fells are females (ewes)? Why is this and where are the males (rams)? On this web site you can even adopt a new-born lamb and learn about its life on the fell until it gives birth to its own lambs and the life cycle starts again.

See our sheep on the fells in June 2008.

The Adopt a Sheep Project is based at Tarn House in Cumbria where Martha and Clara help to manage it. Individuals, families, classes of children, indeed anyone, can adopt a lamb. A lamb may be also be adopted as a gift for someone else - a birthday present, a wedding present, a present for valentine's day, a retirement gift etc. A very unewesual gift we think ewe will agree!! Ewe can make up a message to go on the web site. You can even send in a picture to go on the site.

Martha and Clara with pet lambs

On the highest mountains in Britain, and on some of the most rugged terrain you will see fell sheep. They are so very much a part of the natural landscape that we tend to take them for granted. But they do serve a purpose and have, over thousands of years, shaped the countryside and communities in which we live. This web site seeks to provide an extensive explanation of the life cycle of fell sheep and the job of a hill farmer.

Without sheep grazing, the fells would return to their natural state and would quickly be covered with heather or native plants, and eventually, with native woodland. There is an argument for this type of wilderness approach, but not if you happen to be a hill shepherd!