We did not inform of the news about Meep or Patch as we knew that some people had become attached to her and did not want to cause unnecessary upset for anybody.
I can recall several times mentioning that we (farmers) tend not to name sheep as this creates a bond which, when bad things happen to the animal, makes it even harder to deal with (just like pets). I made this quite clear during last year's North West Tonight features when asked by Gordon, the news presenter, what we were thinking of naming some lambs.
Perhaps it is worth re-iterating that LambWatch isn't a tourist attraction. It is a working farm. The website is intended to be a window on real farming life. Perhaps it is worth making a distinction now between what is a working farm, and what is a tourist attraction farm. When animals are given names on working farms, they are given descriptive names, that help the management of the animals, for example, at LambWatch we have Cockly Head; named because she has a dodgy neck which stops her from looking in one direction. We also have the "green backs"; so called because they have a line of green paint down their backs which means they need to be kept an eye on. We used to have "one-tit-wonder"; so called because she was one-papped (only gave milk on one side). We had a pheasant called "muddyed" cause he looksd like he had been rolling in the mud... Patch was named because of her black ring around her eye. We used to have two tups at the farm; named Big John and Little John... one was large and the other was small, and they came to the farm from another farmer called John.
On tourist attraction farms, the animals are called cute names that people love to give animals; such as Tinkerbell; Flopsy or Mopsy. The only animal at Marlfield Farm with such a name is Lottie who was named not by us, but by those over at Hencam HQ :) Whenever you start naming farm animals as if they were pets you run this risk of being upset when something bad happens to them. The fate of most working farm animals is usually quite a sad one; whereas the fate of most tourist attraction farms is a natural ending; some would say.
Please remember that webcam is provided completely free of charge and the website is completely free of advertising. It should be taken at face value. It is not and never has been a service or business venture whereby services such as information updates about the lambs and sheep have been suggested or offered.
I don't want to sound mean and I know that most people who watch this webcam and use this site understand all this but I felt it was perhaps worth the reminder....
