When Lucie's Lambs was first starting to be developed we originally wanted Lleyn sheep, a hardy sheep from Wales, but due to low cobalt in our soils, we would struggle to finish the carcasses for our lamb boxes, so back to the drawing board! 

 

We then decided to look at what breeds were native to our area, as they must be adapted to this issue, we liked the look of Romneys and the rest is history!

 

Romney sheep orginate from The Romney Marsh, Kent and have been around since the 1800s. As The Romney Marsh has harsh weather the sheep are incredibly hardy, something which was important to us as we graze steep slopes and have no buildings for the sheep to come in during bad weather, although there are plenty of hedges for them to hunker down! 

They are also incredible at foraging, I have seen them scrape snow off to eat the grass underneath! They thrive off grass and make excellent mothers for their lambs with plenty of milk. This means that they are largely very easy to look after, something that we wanted while starting out! 

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At the beginning we bought 10 New Zealand Romney ewe lambs. The New Zealand blood line results in very productive sheep but they are fiesty and slightly wild. We've started introducing English Romneys into the mix and this has calmed them down and resulted in larger carcasses finishing slightly quicker! So we think we are now onto a winner, a combination of English and New Zealand Romneys.  

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