A RARE breed of sheep has been brought to a farm in Barnsley from Scotland in a bid to improve their dwindling numbers.
The male Swiss Valais Blacknose, made famous by Shaun the Sheep, has been rehoused at Cannon Hall Farm, Cawthorne, to breed with the growing female stock.
Last year, the farm welcomed some female Swiss Valais ewes who came embryo transplanted in another sheep breed.
The farmer in Scotland who had the one-year-old sheep, named Grizzly Bear, Raymond Irvine, is on the BBC show This Farming Life.
Raymond has the UK’s first flock of Valais Blacknose sheep, imported originally from Switzerland.
Robert and David Nicholson, who own Cannon Hall Farm, filmed a fly-on-the-wall documentary of their 15-hour round trip to Scotland to collect the farm’s newest arrival.
Robert said: “We really feel passionately that we should get the very best stock for our visitor’s to see at the farm and this amazing breed needs protecting.
“It was the most perfect day it was breathtaking in Scotland.
“Grizzly Bear is a prime example of the breed he has four back booties and two black knees which is the perfect example of the markings a Swiss should have he really stood out to us as being from champion stock.
“We could not be more delighted.”
