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Blackfaced Sheep

How to sew a brat onto a ewe hogg, and everything else you wanted to know about sheep farming in the Highlands

1946 31 mins Silent

Overview

This richly detailed instructional film made by the University of Edinburgh offers an unusually intimate and unsentimental account of the life of a shepherd. The sheer physicality of the job and the challenges of the environment come across in this colourful and sometimes graphic documentary. Unless you're unusually strong-stomached, you may prefer to skip the sequence showing male sheep being castrated [between 20:05 and 21:55].

A sheep farmer's work is never done - made plain by the innumerable shots of shepherds wrestling with, herding, shearing, milking and healing their flock throughout the year - as well as a hectic auction at a local market. In the main, the footage has a clinical detachment to it. But during its fleeting images of young lambs scampering around and jumping across streams, a viewer might stop to consider these animals as more than just meat and wool.

Country

United Kingdom

Language

No Dialogue with English subtitles