Frequently Asked Questions

                    
                       British Soay ewe and her new guardian Foula   
.
                Phenotype, what does a Soay look like
           color, pattern, horns, polled, scurred

Color and pattern: are all Soay brown with a white belly and white rump patch?
Approximately two thirds of the sheep on Hirta are dark (including black) and one third are tan or buff colored.  The majority of these are wild-type or mouflon pattern, with white belly, white rump patch and often white markings around the eyes and under the chin. This coloration is one of the Soay's primitive characteristics. These coat colors suggest an evolutionary sequence beginning with wild sheep (with mouflon markings) and ending with advanced modern breeds which are typically white. [Clutton-Brock, 2004]  A few self-colored animals, both black and tan are also seen.These show no color pattern whatsoever. Most seem to be black, but occasionally tan appears and either can produce the other. A few  black faced, white faced and skewbald animals are seen on Hirta (and in mainland flocks in both the UK the US.). These are all part of the Soays natural color range and not believed to be due to the influence of improved breeds. [Doney, 1974] Skewbald animals have spots or patches of white on a coat of a color other than black, in the case of the Soay, dark brown or tan. (Piebald is white on black)*1

Manes and Ruffs:  In the fall as the rut approaches some rams, not all,  will develop a beard-like ruff under the throat and/or a mane down the back of the neck. These vary in size and length and seem to become more prominent with age. These kempy fibers moult with the wool each spring.

         
Ewes horns:   Do all Soay ewes have horns? Are all British Soay ewes horned?
Only one third of the ewes on Hirta are horned; the remainder are either polled or scurred.  (It is generally accepted that a scurred animal carries less than 50% of normal horns, which can mean it has very small horns or just small stumps. A polled animal has no sign of horn what so ever.) Historically Soay ewes brought to the mainland from Soay were selectively bred for horns. This has led many to the mistaken conclusion that all true Soay ewes are horned. In May 1963 a varied flock of twenty-four sheep was brought to Scotland from Hirta for further study, it included six polled and scurred ewes. Remnants of this group eventually passed into the hands of a small number of private enthusiasts, however, only a very few of them keep polled Soay even today. At the present time all British Soay ewes in North America are horned, however, one polled ewe and one scurred ewe were born to the flock in Canada prior to importation into the US. When crossed with North American Soay both British Soay rams and ewes have produced polled offspring which establishes the fact  they still carry the genetics for polling.

Mature ewe horn samples: Scurred (l)     Polled (center)        Horned (r)
Gaerllwyd Flock, Wales

Rams Horns
Like everything else with the Soay, ram horns come in a variety of configurations. "Of 96 Soay rams from the Village Glen of Hirta which produced at least two years of horn growth, 6 were scurred, 3 had "perverted" horns, curling behind the neck, 2 had horns with prominently everted tips [curled outward], 4 had wide spreading horns and the remainder had horns nearly plain spirals, curling past the face and not usually completing a full circle" [Jewell, 1974].  From our own observations in the Village Glen of Hirta horns are as varied as the sheep themselves. They generally grow between March and September with little or no growth between November and March. Horn genetics are little understood; at this point the only thing researchers have been able to agree upon is that the topic is a complicated one that needs further study. From our own experience there has been little direct correlation (predictability) in horns between father and son.  Often the female seems to have had as much if not more influence than the ram. We have had wide horn rams produce narrow horned sons, who in turn produced wide horned grandsons and half brothers, one with wide the other with perverted horns. Clearly what we are seeing in these various expressions is the widely diverse genetics of the Soay, its most valued asset.  A few rams have truly perverted horns which jeopardized the life of the animal. In husband flocks these are either castrated or butchered, on Hirta and Soay they die. In a few cases only the tips are a problem, gouging the ram in the neck. This is easily remedied with clippers or a wire saw with no harm to the animal. Because the British Soay population in North America is so small and the genetics of each one so important to a national breeding program, such rams are maintained rather than culled. In many cases this trimming is only needed once.*2

  Variation in Soay ram horn configurations 

open curl   (l)   wide (r)           Hirta,St.Kilda        1	open curl Hirta, St. Kilda                 2	scurred (a)  Hirta ,St. Kilda                     3
everted tips,  Wales	scurred (b)  Hirta                      5	curling past face, Oregon         6

Photos 1 & 3 Soay Rams on Hirta, July 2004   *  Photo 2  &  5 Soay rams on Hirta courtesy of John Love, South Uist,
Scotland  *  Photo 4 Gaerllwyd  Flocks, R.M. and C. Williams,  Little Gaerllwyd, Wales  *
Photo 6 Southern Oregon Soay Farms

What is a...?

What is a British Soay sheep?  
A British Soay is a Soay sheep living in North America which is registered with the Combined Flock Book of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in Great Britain. It is reciprocal with Soay in Britain*.  British Soay are descendents of a flock exported from England to Montreal in 1990 and then imported to Oregon between 1998 and 2000.The term British Soay is used only in the US and Canada to distinguish these sheep from North American Soay which are registered in the United States.
*"Any Soay sheep registered with the Combined Flock Book, wherever in the world they are, is considered true Soay and if registered Soay were to come back to the UK it would be fully eligible to remain in the CFB, and its progeny allowed full registration."   Letter of Reciprocity to ALBC from the Soay Sheep Society Friends of the Soay and Boreray, RBST (UK)  28 June 2004.

What is a "Hirta Soay" ?  a "Park Soay"?
In  May 1963 Peter Jewell’s Soay Research Team brought back twenty four sheep from Hirta for further study on the mainland. Prior to this team members were only able conduct their research on St. Kilda for short weeks in the summer. This group of Soay "comprised of a selection of colors, and ewes with and without horns, and even some animals showing white markings, sheep that were representative of the animals as we encountered them on Hirta.”  [the Ark, 1980].  These Dr. Jewell referred to as “Hirta Soay” to distinguish them from the “Park Soay” which had been kept on mainland estates since the late nineteenth Century.  Dr. Jewell described  Park Soay as sheep that were “subject to very strong selection depending on the particular fancy or view of the park owners as to what a Soay sheep should look like.” [The ARK, 1980].  These selectively bred animals have mistakenly led many to believe that polled, blonde or animals with white markings are not true Soay.*3 

Health Issues

Do Soay sheep get scrapie?
 We are not aware of any cases of scrapie in Soay sheep in Great Britain.  All
 US British Soay breeders are participants in the USDA scrapie program and to date no scrapie has been identified in the national flock. Prior to admission into the United States the entire foundation flock was held in quarantine in Canada for a decade to insure that it was disease free. Interestingly, while the Soay is genetically susceptible to scrapie it does not seem to occur.  Scrapie resistance remains a mystery, even as many agricultural programs are promoting the elimination of rams that carry scrapie-susceptible genes. This elimination would threaten the very existence of primitive northern shorttailed sheep breeds, including the Soay, because most of them are genetically susceptible to scrapie.    

Are Soay sheep resistant to internal parasites? External parasites?
In our experience Soay sheep have been able to tolerate higher internal parasite (worm) loads than the modern breeds that we have kept in our drier climate in southern Oregon. However, current research on the St.Kilda island of Hirta has shown that internal parasite loads are an important contributing factor to mortality in years of population crashes when up to 60% of the feral sheep population dies. [Clutton-Brock. 2004] .In spite of numerous historical citations to the contrary, Soay sheep can be troubled by fly-strike which if left untreated can kill them. Other external parasites such as lice and ticks can also be a problem.*4

Lambing

Do  Soay sheep lamb more than once a season? what is the gestation for a Soay?
No. However, they can lamb outside the traditional lambing season of March and April and many keepers have experienced "surprise" late lambs, some as late as October. Even on St. Kilda we saw a week old lamb the end of August. Gestation for Soay Sheep ranges between 142 and 152 days with a mean of 148. [Ryder, 1983]*5

Do Soay sheep commonly have twins?   triplets?
Middle aged Soay ewes often twin. Triplets have been recorded but are quite rare. Of approximately 150 births in fifteen years only one set of triplets has been produced in North America. In 1995 a set of quadruplets was documented in the UK. [The ARK, 1996] Intensive studies on Hirta have led researchers to conclude that there is a correlation between twinning rates and body weight, heavier ewes have a higher percentage of twins than lighter ones.[Clutton-Brock, 2004].  We have found that yearlings (shearlings) seldom twin, but older ewes very often do.  But we have also had ewes that had only one set of twins in their breeding careers, all other seasons they had singles. Only a few have consistently produced twins year after year. Sometimes their daughters do likewise sometimes they do not. *6

Shedding

Do Soay Sheep always shed?
No. Very often ewes that have not lambed do not shed. The current thinking is that hormones and body condition control shedding. In our own flock we have found ewes that did not lamb, sometimes did not shed. For their comfort in the summer heat, where our temperatures often reach 100 F or higher, we roo (hand pluck) them or have them shorn. The removal of retained fleece is also advisable in areas where fly-strike is problem.

Six year old ewe with retained fleece, Village area of Hirta on St. Kilda, July 2004

 Management Issues

 
Can Soay sheep just be left out in the pasture to take care of themselves?
The Soay is a relatively hardy animal and requires minimal care when compared to modern specialized breeds, but this does not mean it can just be left on it own completely unattended. It thrives best when provided with shelter from winter rains just as it does on Hirta in the hundreds of cleits found there. Because it has a thin fleece with proportionally less lanolin, the Soay benefits from shelter more than any other breed. It does also need a worming program, foot checks and external parasite protection (lice, ticks, blow flies).  Protection from predators is essential; the worst of which are usually neighborhood dogs.

Ewe seeks cover
We realized it was raining when we noticed all the sheep were running for cover.
                        July, 2004 cleit in a stonewall near the Manse on Hirta.  Photo by Christine Williams                                 

Can I make a pet out of my ram lamb?
Yes you can - if he is castrated.  But we feel that rams will respect people and view them as the dominant creature if they are not made into pets. Rams should always be treated with caution especially during the rut when they can be protective of their flock.  It only takes one bump from even a small ram to cause a permanent injury. Always keep at least one eye on your ram - two if he is normally friendly.

Miscellaneous

Do Soay Sheep eat kelp in their island environment?
No. None of the Soay on Soay and only very few on Hirta have access to the sea and the rich kelp beds that surround the archipelago. The Islands of St. Kilda rise nearly perpendicularly from the ocean and only at Village Bay on Hirta can one reach the shore. But even there the sheep do not eat seaweed.^* Many people in the US confuse the seaweed eating sheep of Orkney (North Ronaldsay) with the Soay Sheep of St. Kilda. A number of shepherds of all breeds, however, do feed their sheep a commercial kelp meal and find it a valuable mineral supplement. *some veterinarians are beginning to see goiter problems, especially in goats.,
*personal conversation with researcher, Hirta, St. Kilda, July 21, 2004

Have the Soay on St. Kilda been crossbred?
No one can say for certain if the sheep on St. Kilda have been crossbred over the course of their long history. Put any breed of sheep under the microscope and you are apt to find infusion of other breeds, but because of the isolation for thousands of years of the remote and inaccessible island of Soay, the sheep on Soay  have arguably been pure breeding for longer than is the case for any other breed of sheep. Its isolation has guaranteed this purity like no other breed. “It is one of the faunal treasures of Britain.” [Williamson, Boyd, 1960] The remoteness and inaccessibility of the island of Soay is best appreciated by a visit to circumnavigate this “lost world” rising 1000 feet sheer out of the North Atlantic.

The island of Soay rising straight out of the sea, Hirta to the right July 2004

A very limited number of landings on Soay have been made since the evacuation of St. Kilda in 1930 and virtually no genetic study of the sheep there has yet been done. When members of the Soay Research Team went to Soay in the late 1950's and early 1960's the study of DNA was in its infancy and Genotyping, a technology now used by scientists to examine the genetic makeup of the sheep, did not exist. Consequently the Soay on Soay have not yet been genotyped for scrapie resistance (or for any other characteristics) and there have been no DNA studies that might provide evidence as to whether introgression has occurred. With one exception sheep researchers have not been back to Soay since Dr. Jewell's visit in the 1960s.

St. Kildan history is one of Gaelic oral tradition with no written records, throughout most of their past the St. Kildans were illiterate and until the mid nineteenth century few spoke English. What we do know has been passed down in narrative form from generation to generation and has been recorded/translated by outside observers, often prejudiced by the culture of their own times, a number of whom had never been to the islands at all. The reports of these accounts must always be viewed with a bit of skepticism. One such story, that of the single introduction of white rams to Soay, has appeared repeatedly in the literature, including Island Survivors, [Campbell, R.N, 1974] and this citation has been put forth as definitive evidence that crossbreeding on Soay has occurred. This account originated with an interview by a visitor, Mr. Eagle Clarke, of an islander who translated the story told by his Gaelic speaking father. It is an account of a reported conversation and by the time it was published by H.J. Elwes in the February 1912 issue of the Scottish Naturalist, it was second-hand. It is without corroboration by another islander and as such does not deserve the label of “oral history”. While we certainly cannot dismiss the possibility that it could be true, we must also be cautious in our acceptance of it as concrete evidence.

On the more accessible island of Hirta the case for cross breeding seems much stronger. During the spring of 2000 a white ewe was born in Gleann Mor on the north side Hirta and it has been suggested one possible explanation for this was domestic sheep missed in the round up and cull of 1930. Anyone who has traipsed over St. Kilda can attest to the fact that this certainly could be a possibility.   However, what many do not realize is that the transfer of 107 Soay from Soay to Hirta in 1932 did not occur over just a few days or a week, but rather over an entire season and possibly longer.  The Marquess of Butte, fearing the island would be overgrown if left ungrazed, hired several islanders to return and spend the summer of 1932 catching and transferring sheep from one island to the other. Further, several of these St. Kildans spent every following summer until 1939 in their old homes on "Main Street".  It is hard to believe that in the course of nearly a decade any straggler from the cull would not have been observed and at least mentioned. No record of such an observation has yet surfaced.

A few sheep on Hirta have been tested, and a small proportion found to have the scrapie resistant genotype. Kinsman, [2004] suggests that a proportion of sheep with the scrapie resistant genotype can be used to infer the extent of crossbreeding in a primitive sheep population. However, these studies have a number of as yet unanswered questions and as the author himself states “the fundamental premise that primitive sheep were all ARQ/ARQ needs further confirmation”. [Kinsman, 2004]. For example, presumably due to a point mutation, when an ARR ram is bred to an ARR ewe it does not always produce an ARR lamb [Elliot, 2005] and what interactions, if any, might there be with trace elements and prion proteins that still need to be studied? *7
                                                                

I have read that  that Soay can not be worked with sheepdogs.
Not true. Soay cannot be worked with dogs in the same way that commercial sheep are worked, however, they can be taught to understand Soay.  A well trained dog will learn to work the sheep from a distance knowing that once a flock of Soay is put under pressure by a dog it will split into separate flocks.

Joe knows to keep his distance when moving a flock of Soay at Gaerllwyd Flocks in Wales

References:
*1Clutton-Brock, Tim and Pemberton, Josephine, ed. Soay Sheep, Dynamics and Selection in an Island Population, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004. pg.28
Doney,J.M., Ryder, M.L., Gunn, R.G. and Grubb, P.  Colour, Conformation, Affinities, Fleece and Patterns of Inheritance in Soay Sheep, Jewell, P.A., Milner, C.,Morton-Boyd, J., Island Survivors, the Ecology of Soay Sheep of St. Kilda, Athlone Press, London, 1974. pg. 121.
Jewell, P.A., unpublished field notes and photographs 1963
2Jewell, P.A., Milner, C.Morton-Boyd, J.,Island Survivors, the Ecology of Soay Sheep of St. Kilda, Athlone Press, London, 1974. pg. 98
*3Jewell, P.A. Soay Sheep-Part II, the Ark, RBST 7 (1980) pp. 87-93
*4 Clutton-Brock, Tim and Pemberton, Josephine, ed. Soay Sheep, Dynamics and Selection in an Island Population, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.
*5Ryder, M.L. Sheep and Man. Gerald Duckworth and Co., London 1983 pg.12
*6The Ark, RBST. Spring 1996, pg. 6
*7Campbell, R.N,  St. Kilda and its Sheep, Jewell, P.A., Milner, C.,Morton-Boyd, J., Island Survivors, the Ecology of Soay Sheep of St. Kilda, Athlone Press, London, 1974. pg. 31.
Elliot, George. Scrapie-Another Way. The ARK, RBST. 33:no. 2 (Spring 2005), pg. 20
Kinsman, David J.J .Interpretation of PrP (Scrapie) Genotype Data for Primitive Short-tailed Sheep (Part II), The ARK, RBST. 32: no.4 (Winter 2004) pp-38-42
Kinsman, David J.J .Interpretation of PrP (Scrapie) Genotype Data for Primitive Short-tailed Sheep (Part II), The ARK, RBST. 32: no.4 (Winter 2004) pg.42
Williamson, Kenneth and Boyd, J. Morton, St. Kilda Summer, Anchor Press Ltd., Tiptree, Essex 1960. pg 76

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