Our Soay lambs and yearlings are not a bit skittish and as tame as can be. We love to hear reports from delighted customers about how their new charges have settled in their new locations, eating from the hand and the bucket, making friends with their new keepers. Our lambs are handled right after birth to be weighed, have their temperature taken, and to receive lamb-sized injections of BoSe and vitamins A&D. Then, for the next ten weeks or so, they get used to our frequent presence — or at least the presence of our legs and feet — as we feed their mothers twice daily, check on water, tend to any newborns, and generally hang around for the joy of it. Our lambs soon learn to jump on and around the garden cart we use to deliver hay, and gradually they discover that there's more to a human than jeans and boots. Oh, and the dogs deserve mention: one or two giant livestock guardian dogs as well as Llucy the supervisory llama are part of the constant scene. One of the dogs will even permit fearless lambs to climb all over him and nibble his tail.

After weaning, we continue to stay familiar with the ewe lambs, but we interact with ram lambs much less after they have been put to pasture with the adult rams, since we would like the rams to be just a little bit leery of us. All this attention will make your life easier when you need to round your flock up for occasional worming and especially for the annual ritual of vaccination and hoof trim. No sheep, not even one of our Soay sheep, actually likes to be caught, of course, and they get pretty wily when they figure out that something they don't like is coming down. But once you've caught them, they mostly relax with a grudging "let's-get-this-over-with" attitude.

Are Soay sheep and children compatible? You bet. Little kids are captivated by our tame little Soay sheep. We've had lots of children mingle with our ewes and lambs and giggle with delight when the sheep nuzzle up for a handful of grain. Whether you are a literal kid or still a kid at heart, you will find yourself at risk of frittering away whole summer afternoons watching the lambs frolic, and not just when they are tiny. They continue to play and covort around the Maternity Ward and beyond when they are weaned and sent to pasture. It's a hoot to watch them collapse for a nap after a particularly stirring romp.

Our sheep are exceptionally well characterized genetically, with pedigrees going back at least five generations and in most cases much farther back than that. All our sheep are fully documented in the OFP database. One of the great joys of discovering Soay sheep is the opportunity for Steve to put his Ph.D. training and his academic career in genetics to good use in "retirement," both for the OFP and also for our own flock. We are so focused on accurate paternity that we use tiny green numbered eartags at birth to be sure we will not have any lamb mixups before they are big enough for their adult USDA Scrapie tags.

Our collection of registered British Soay breeding stock is the largest in North America and the third largest in the world, according to the 2007 RBST Soay sheep flock survey. With so many ewes, by using at least three different rams each year, and by using each ram only one season, we are able to provide genetically diverse and balanced starter flocks. Moreover, for those who wish to increase their holdings gradually over several years, we can ensure that each year’s set of lambs will not be too closely related to any prior year's crop.

Each and every one of our British Soay lambs is registered with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) in the U.K. We arrange for transfers of ownership and RBST certificates for each British Soay sheep we sell.

We chose the foundation animals for our flock of American Soay sheep for their own good looks and their ability to provide us with mahogany, tan, red, black and all variants of interesting fleece colors, for their horns (or lack thereof) and for their conformation. Each year we strive for specific characteristics in our American breeding program. This year we expect to have for sale a number of tans, tan carriers, blacks, and black carriers.