Shrek, The Very Woolly Sheep

The story of Shrek the sheep is known by lots of people. Shrek is such an interesting animal. Newspaper and television reporters were keen to tell the story about him. Shrek hadn’t been shorn for about 6 years, and his wool weighed about 27 kg. Six years is a long time for any sheep to be growing its wool. Most sheep get shorn every year.

You might wonder why Shrek hadn’t been shorn every year like the other sheep. He lived alone in a cave high in the hills where he wasn’t seen. Each year dogs and people muster the sheep and bring them down from the hills. Because there are so many sheep, if one sheep is missing it wouldn’t be noticed.

This year the sheep were mustered like every other year. The dogs and musterers were rounding up the sheep in the high country. Not all of the musterers were men. Some were women. It was a woman musterer called Ann Scanlan who found Shrek. Ann said that finding Shrek was one of the nicest things to happen to her.

Ann Scanlan grew up on a farm and has been mustering sheep for about 25 years. In that time she had seen lots of sheep that looked much the same. To see one that hadn’t been shorn for six years was very unusual. Ann said that Shrek was a very strange looking wild sheep.

The sheep live on John Perriman’s farm in a place called Tarras. He never had so many people interested in his sheep before. And now there were people from all over the world who wanted to visit John’s farm. John was happy for people to see Shrek. The money from Shrek’s wool would be used to help sick children.