Those wild mountain goats weren't always so wild. Up until about 1750 goats and cattle dominated rural uplands and then the booming wool trade beckoned. All emphasis switched to sheep production and the goats were moved down off the mountain - apart from the ones that got away.
They have majestic horns which you can hear cracking against each other during the rutting season each October. Go to somewhere like Cwm Bychan or into the foothills of the Moelwyns and listen out for it. The horns have another facet, they curve back perfectly to protect the shoulders and back during a roly-poly down cliff faces!
The old farming system, or alpine system, was tied to the traditional dates and May 1 marked the date at which all farmers had to move their stock up to the Hafodty (summer grazing) where they would remain until returning at Hallowe'en to the Hendre. The dates were very specific and by law everyone had to move on the same day so no-one took advantage of the best grazing spot.
The Welsh Black has been bred and refined through the generations and is the best known cattle pedigree in Wales. However, several farmers stayed with the more traditional and rare pedigrees. The counter argument to cross-breeding to gain new attributes is that you lose some of the evolutionary adaptation to that particular farmscape. Thus in the Mawddach you can find black cattle with a white line running down their back, or a white belt running round their waist. You can also find white cows with black ears and these are recorded from Roman times as being used in druidic sacrifices.
These white cattle were fearsome beasts not afraid to have a go at humans. Thus, when Llewelyn Bren was fined 800 cattle for leading an unsuccessful rebellion in the early 1300s, he sent 800 black-eared white cattle to terrorise people the other side of Offa's Dyke.
Welsh lamb is renowned for being small but tasty and this reflects their hardy environment. Salt Marsh Lamb from the Mawddach, Dwyryd and Glaslyn estuaries is a speciality with a different taste much sought-after by the French to whom most production is exported. You can buy it in season from local butchers. The dominant sheep in the flock senses when the tide is coming in and leads the flock in a long line up the estuary to the higher ground returning as it goes out.
Upland sheep are conditioned to stay within their 'Cynefin', a territory from which they don't move and which is inherited by successive generations. In 1806 a big farm near Snowdon, called Dyffryn Mymbyr, decided to go into high-volume sheep production and to that end bought a couple of hundred ewes and rams from Cader Idris, a sheep area of great reputation. On arrival at Dyffryn Mymbyr the children of the family and nearby surroundings were organised to stand guard as the sheep munched around their particular part of the mountains. If the sheep got too close to the boundary or ridge, they would turn them back. Eventually the sheep got the message and their Cynefin was established.
All went well for the next 150 years until, alas, foot and mouth struck Snowdonia and the sheep had to be slaughtered. Not only would the farmer lose all his sheep but the Cynefin would be lost forever. Fortunately the farm had sold some old ewes to Ireland earlier that year, the Irish having more of a taste for the maturer mutton, and the return of these ewes enabled the Cynefin to be re-established.
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