Farmyard Fridays #11: One Sheep Five Ways

I've mentioned before in Farmyard Fridays that grown sheep can tend to seem a little boring in comparison to their offspring. They definitely don't have the charm and personality that, for instance, goats or donkeys have, at least on the surface. However, I feel I've been maligning the species for a while now, and it's unfair. They may not have the same quirks and foibles of their caprine cousins, but they do have the edge over them in one way: they are super super useful.

Okay, so pigs are notoriously a useful farmyard feature. You can, so I have been informed, use every part of a pig in cooking. This is a pretty hideous thing to consider and I try not to most of the time. Sheep, however, are equally if not more useful, for the following reasons. I give you One Sheep Five Ways - how you can maximise the use of your sheep.

1. Obviously, there is one thing staring you in the face about sheep, at least for half of the year. They have a seriously epic fleece which has been farmed for perhaps as long as 8000 years. Being able to make clothes out of an animal and still retain the animal does set them apart from pretty much every other farmyard creature; skinning a cow for leather does tend to render the cow null and void. What's more, the fleece will grow back and you can do the same again the next year. This may seem obvious but it is pretty incredible when you think about it. Sheep can go from this:

to this:

in sheer (!) seconds in the right hand. And from that can come so many useful things which we use without thinking about them: jumpers and socks and blankets and sheepskin rugs and this oh so useful and decorative set of figures.

(It's a knitted Archbishop of Canterbury! Like, how useful is that? God bless sheep.)

It doesn't stop with clothes though. Oh no. There's more that woolly fleece of goodness can offer up yet.

2. Lanolin. There's a word you'll have seen hundreds of times in your life, but I for couldn't say where I've seen it until recently. There are so many uses for this grease that it's hard to know where to start. Here's possibly the most common household lanolin product:

However, this waxy substance is also used in a variety of cosmetics, as lubricant for some musical instruments and to break in baseball mitts. It's pretty multi-purpose, and whilst some people are allergic to it, it's an extremely common ingredient in many products.

Lanolin is a grease found in the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals. Basically, it's the grease in a sheep's fleece. It can be squeezed out before the fleece is used for other purposes as we've already looked at above. So you can not only clothe yourself using your sheep, you can moisturise and generally prettify yourself too.

Your sheep isn't finished yet though. With a bit of training you can absolutely

3. Race your sheep. I think this pretty much speaks for itself. It's not the Grand National or the Derby but look!

It's sheep freaking racing! And jumping!

If this is not starting to make you want a sheep, I don't know if we'd ever be friends.

Of course, all of this requires some effort on your part. Shearing sheep is a skill and I imagine training a sheep to bounce over barrels isn't really a walk in the park. All of this is bound to make you hungry. So why not try

4. Milking your sheep. I know, it sounds disgusting, but sheep produce milk as any mammal does, and whilst goats' milk has been the increasingly popular alternative to cows' milk in recent years, sheep's milk is used in products such as feta, Roquefort and ricotta. It is significantly higher in fats, proteins and minerals than cows' milk, making it more calorific but perfect for cheese making. You can therefore have a munch on your homemade produce whilst wrestling your sheep around a racetrack. It will definitely give you energy.

And then, alas, the end comes to us all. When you've had enough of shearing and training and milking and generally tending to your sheep, you can always

5. Eat your sheep. Dependent upon the age of your sheep, you can produce lamb, hogget or mutton, and the organs are also popularly eaten as offal. Admittedly, it's not the most healthy meat around, with a nutritional profile to beef, but it is pretty tasty. It's very hard to look at this and not feel a tad peckish

And besides, if you want to raise up your next sheep friend, you'll need some fuel for the task ahead.

Farmyard Fridays Fact #11: Sheep are super super useful.

A sixth use for your sheep has come to light in the last week. Sandwiched nicely in between uses 4 and 5, comes this ingenious use for your sheep:

Shakhter Karagandy threatened with disciplinary proceedings over sheep sacrifice ritual before games

It may have worked for them; they did, after all, beat Celtic 2-0, so never rule this sixth use for your sheep out. It is, however, possibly a step too far for some of us, meaning that this particularly hypothetical sheep will be saved from this ritual.

This week's Farmyard Friday is absolutely inspired by a visit to West Lodge Rural Centre in Northamptonshire a couple of weeks ago which was frankly amazing and well worth a visit for anyone with or without children.