What would you feel like if you get to witness a four-legged, overly fluffy, pitch-black thing in a white hood on the greeny mountains? Would you find them cute or terrifying? That’s something people can’t decide with these Valais Blacknose sheep.
This German sheep breed, also known as the Blacknosed Swiss, Visp, Visperchaf, or Wallis Blacknose, is a coarse wooled breed of sheep reared for both meat and wool. They have black noses, ears, eyes, knees and ankles, and white wool. It’s not their wool that makes them famous. It’s their extremely dark faces. Some might even say the grim reaper is staring at them except in white clothes. Also, both males and females have spiral horns.
#1
#2
#3
Being a mountain breed, they are well adapted to grazing on the stony grasslands. They have first been recognized in the year 1400, but first documented as a breed in 1962. At first, the Valais Blacknose was found only in the areas surrounding the Valais region of Switzerland. That was until the breed was imported to the United Kingdom in 2014 and the United States of America in 2016.
#4
#5
#6
#7
A Northumberland farmer said, “No one outside of Switzerland knew these sheep even existed until two years ago because they spend the winter months inside and the summer living above glaciers in the Swiss mountains.”
A netizen who saw a photograph of a Valaise Blacknose for the first time said, “A picture of one was put on Facebook which was shared millions of times, I saw it and thought what on earth is that? I just had to get one.”
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15
Reading, creative writing, poetry writing, and language learning have been my passions since I was young. I have won many Japanese and Chinese language competitions, and many national-level creative writing, art & oratory competitions too. I am still schooling, and passed my O/Levels with distinction passes for English Literature, Japanese, and English. I have also completed my Certificate of Human Resource Management.
