Java learns to be a miniature version of a New Zealand Huntaway sheepdog
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2023-12-03

Just to say to those who don’t understand two points. One Java is less than 8 months old and is learning how to help herd the sheep with his barking. Secondly New Zealand Huntaway sheep dogs are huge. Their heads are about the size of Java’s whole body. Maya is improving but doesn’t quite get what one’s supposed to do. Yes I roar at Java but it’s to get through his excitement to get him to listen. There is a moment in this video where I make the mistake of not telling him he is a good boy when he breaks off barking but I was distracted with a gate. Otherwise he is really getting the idea of how to help and when to stop. Youthful enthusiasm is his best attribute right now.     






Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.