How to recognise a shagged sheep

I get told things by my crofting neighbours and I can never be quite sure if they are pulling my leg.

However - I have been told that the sheep I see in the fields just now - with coloured bottoms - have been shagged - mated.
The ram, or tup as they call him here, has done his job.

I think it may be right.
A quick Google tells me that putting coloured paste on the underside of the tup before he mates, is called raddling.

I suppose it is quite clever really. How else would you know which sheep had been left out and still  needed attention?

 I wonder if it helps the tup - for the same reason

The Last of the Ducks

I wrote earlier (Duck Shooting 22/10/2013) about the sadness of the tame ducks being shot on the loch with the unpronounceable Gaelic name.

The snow has come here and the weather is dreich, so I set off up the hill to see how they were faring.

To my surprise I found 20 of them up the path, just seconds away from the croft, cowering in a hollow.

Today - just a couple of days later, there were none.

A walk right up to the loch found only one alive – wounded and dying.

It was a place of slaughter, with the odd dead bird on the ground and one even hanging in a tree. The ground was littered with empty cartridge cases and litter.

And they call this Sport?