Blue Sheep in Iceland
Drivers in Iceland have often been startled by sheep running across the road. Sheep run free in Iceland during the summer months often causing some havoc on the roads. However drivers have been slightly more startled by blue sheep in Steingrímsfjörður recently. Are these elf sheep or political sheep?
Sheep are the main product of most Icelandic farms and lamb meat the traditional Icelandic dinner. Farmers have come up with all sorts of tricks in their sheep farming. One problem that sometimes occurs is that the mother sheep denies her lamb, especially if she had two. Somehow feeling that two is one too many she’ll deny one of them milk.
Guðbrandur Sverrisson farmer at Bassastaðir has come up with a solution. Sheep know their lambs from the smell only and are color blind. Somehow he discovered that if he spray paints the whole lamb, he is able to mask its scent. The sheep no longer knows which lamb is which and lets them both drink. He says the paint does no harm and washes off in the first few months out in the mountains.
Of course his neighbors are accusing him of supporting the blue flagged Sjálfstæðisflokkur (Independence Party) political party. To counter this he’s painting some lambs green, the color of Framsóknarflokkurinn (Farmers Party).
