The sheep are the white ones, right? Hang on, some of the cattle are also white, so sheep are small and white…except that there are also white ones with black faces, and one completely black lamb, and some that are sort of spotty (in the Dalmatian sense of the word, rather than hormonal teenage yobbo sense). And some of the calves are small too.
So we need to find something else to define them. How about - sheep are the ones with two udders instead of four? Great! But what about those without udders? Yes, they have something dangling underneath, and there are two of them, but it's quite another set-up down there. Some of them look like they need the ram equivalent of a sports bra, as running is quite awkward and not at all comfortable. Timing your gait with the swing of your money-makers is probably as difficult to perfect as patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Lambs don't have udders yet either (I know, I turned one over to check).
What about wool? Hooray, sheep have wool! Apparently so do mammoths, but they are in short supply in Devon, so no likelihood of mixing them up. The only trouble is, sometimes sheep don't have wool. It's all in big bags at the Wool Marketing Board.
Well, we all know what a sheep looks like, right? So just call a sheep a sheep. Unless of course it's a mule (a type of cross-breed) or a hog (a second-year). I have a sneaky suspicion that this can lead to a lot of confusion.
Apparently, not a sheep.
