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What's new at the Museum

August 2009
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It's sheep time

Posted by Rose Aug 28, 2009
sheep-wg.jpg
Our Greyface Dartmoor sheep have arrived

It's incredible to think that from this week we will have sheep grazing outside the Museum in our Wildlife Garden. Just 5 minutes walk from one of the busiest streets in London. But this has been happening since 1999. The sheep (usually 3 to 5 of them) arrive every year around this time in late summer. They graze and trample the fallen plant seeds into the soil, after the garden’s meadow and chalk lowland plants have flowered and seeded. They play an important role in the ecology of our garden.

 

And did you know that our sheep are named after Dartmoor tors? There’s Kitty, Little Mis, Honey, Bella and Huccaby. This year it’s Honey, Bella and her lamb who are visiting and I hope to meet them soon. We used to borrow our sheep from Freightliners Farm, but then an anonymous donor helped us buy our own.

 

Our sheep spend most of the year at the London Wetland Centre – our partner in this sheep grazing project. Lambs previously born to our sheep have been re-homed on farms in Somerset, Hounslow and Kent.