WILLIAM Mullin is a young lad who certainly knows a thing or two about sheep.
At just four years old he can recognise and pick out an individual sheep from a flock of several dozen.
He also helps father Daniel with the lambing, hand-rearing, handling and herding on the 100-acre Huck Hill Farm at Marsden.
The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is look out of the window to see which sheep are in which fields.
A pupil at Marsden Infant and Nursery School, William can’t wait to get home every day to spend time on the farm with the animals.
Farming is in William’s blood and he is a complete natural. Both of his grandfathers – Noel Mullin at Huck Hill and Clive Mitchell, of Coldwell Farm, Holmbridge – are farmers and experienced sheep handlers.
William is already well known on the local agricultural show circuit since he was given his first sheep as a second birthday present.
Last year, when he was only three, William won several firsts in sheep classes and was second in the three to nine-year-old Young Sheep Handler at the Great Yorkshire Show.
He sold his successful ram and bought five ewes with the proceeds. Now he has his own flock of over a dozen sheep and is hoping that one of this season’s lambs will bring him further success this summer.
Father Daniel said: “I’m over the moon that William has been nominated – it is brilliant.
“I have never met anybody who is as keen as mustard like William. He just seems to have a natural talent and a connection with animals that is unbelievable.
“If I ring him up when I’m away he can give me a full run down of which sheep are where and how the lambs are.
“The other morning I heard him at 6.30am in his bedroom practising his whistling so he can run the sheepdogs!”
