British farmers using Axe body spray to keep rams from fighting

April 18 (UPI) -- A British sheep farmer said she found a surprising solution for curbing the aggression of her rams -- Axe body spray.

Sam Bryce, who raises sheep on the Norfolk-Suffolk border in England, said it was other farmers on the Facebook group Ladies Who Lamb who told her the Africa variety of the body spray, known as Lynx in Britain and other countries where the Axe trademark was not available, masks the hormones that cause rams to become aggressive toward one another.

Bryce told The Wall Street Journal that since she started using the heavily-perfumed body spray on the animals, "There's no argy-bargy, no rowing."

She said using body spray to calm rams is a growing practice.

"There are several of us doing it right across the country and I think even the world now," Bryce told ITV News.

Some fellow sheep farmers said the body spray is good for more than just keeping rams calm -- Suffolk shepherdess Caitlin Jenkins said she uses the same variety to convince mother sheep to adopt abandoned lambs.

She said ewes identify their babies by smell, and using the body spray confuses them into thinking the lambs belong to them.

"I always go for Lynx Africa because it has a very distinctive strong smell," she said. "The ones that don't smell as strong have less chance of working."