Stuffed Lambs

There is nothing quite as adorable as plush stuffed lambs; with their gentle expressions and endearing faces, they are simply too hard to resist

. Like with all soft toys, plush stuffed lambs need lots of love and attention if they are going to remain happy in their human home.

On the remote Scottish island of Hirta (in the St Kilda archipelago), a wild breed of sheep - called Soay sheep - make their home. In 2007, however, scientists first reported that their bodies were mysteriously decreasing in size. Based on a new study, they have confirmed evidence that climate change is the culprit for the 'shrinkage.'

The research team involving the Soay sheep body study, examined both sheep body size and data of life history which according to Science Daily "records the timing of key milestones throughout an individual sheep's life, on Hirta over a 24 year period." The results showed that sheep living on the island are just not growing as fast as they once did, in addition to finding that smaller sheep had more of a chance of making it into adulthood. As a result, overall average size of the sheep within the population was down (over the last 24 years, average body size decreased by about 5% percent). Researcher Professor Coulson explains that " this is because shorter, milder winters, caused by global climate change, mean that lambs do not need to put on as much as weight in the first months of life to survive to their first birthday as they did when winters were colder." Ultimately, with climate change, grass is available for longer periods of time making conditions to survive not as challenging as they once were. When winters were much harsher, it was only healthy, large sheep and lambs that were able to survive after having put on lots of weight in their first summer.

Other results of the study showed that the age in which female sheep were giving birth was affecting the size of the baby. While being young and giving birth does explain why Soay sheep weren't getting any bigger, it still didn't explain why their bodies were shrinking. Professor Coulson says "we believe that this is down to climate change;" Soay females were just incapable of delivering offspring that was as big as they were when they were born.

Toy stuffed lambs can be as big or as small as you want them given the wide variety of sizes there are to choose from on the soft toy market. However, since real baby lambs are not all that large, don't you want your plush stuffed lambs to mimic the real thing?

stuffed lambs

stuffed lambs

Copyright Shelley Vassall, 2010. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Stuffed Lambs

By: Shelley Vassall

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