A FAMILY has been sickened by the slaughter of one of their rare-breed sheep by thieves who took the carcass and left the fleece behind as a macabre calling card.

Heather Hughes, who discovered all that was left of her Hebridean ewe, called Penny, said: "It was pretty sick of whoever was responsible.

"They could have taken the fleece with them. But it seems as though they wanted me to know what they had done.

"If they had taken the fleece I would have thought it was a fox that had got it."

Mrs Hughes, of Hollingside Lane, Durham, was alerted by her husband who noticed one of the sheep was missing from a field near their house.

Mrs Hughe said: "All we found was the skin. There was no head, no nothing. It was very upsetting, as it was one of the lambs we had bred and hand-reared ourselves.

"As well as that it was probably pregnant.

"They knew what they were doing and made a good job of it.

"The skin was left in a good condition. It was not as if they just tore it away."

She said it was unlikely the thieves would have got much meat from the sheep, which was no bigger than a labrador.

Mrs Hughes developed an interest in breeding sheep after helping out a friend with lambing during the foot-and-mouth crisis.

She started with three woolly sheep, before taking an interest in rare breeds, including Manx Loghtan sheep.

Mrs Hughes said: "If we have any males they go to slaughter and we eat them.

"But the ewes we keep for breeding purposes and treat very much as pets.

"They all have their own names and come to us when we feed them. Penny was born last year and was only nine months old."

The gruesome find was also witnessed by six-year-old daughter Sally, who has a couple of her own pet sheep.

Mrs Hughes said: "Sally was very upset and is going to put the Penny's name up on the prayer tree at school."

Police are investigating.