Last Thursday morning, homeowner Kristen Jackson, 28, who lives in rural Lancashire, England, at the foothills of the Pennines, described the “hilarious” moment she found a flock of sheep trotting on top of her four-bed property.

The farm animals scampering on the roof were “shocking” and not the first thing she or her partner, Daniel Payne, 33, thought might be causing a ruckus echoing through their home at 8 a.m. 

Fearing a burglar, Jackson said she rushed outside to see what was making the commotion before she “burst out laughing” upon discovering a small herd of sheep walking up and down the roof, which is only around nine feet off the ground.

“I heard the noises and thought, what is that? It surely can’t be a bird. Is it a cat or something else? It sounded a lot bigger,” the marketing executive told the British wire service SWSN, which first reported the story. “So, I was like, ‘I need to go and see what’s on the roof.’”

She continued, “You think the worst: is someone on the house? is someone breaking in? I quickly jumped out of bed and went out of the back door; I went to the back garden area and looked up, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, there are sheep on the roof.’

“I just burst out laughing because it was kind of hilarious.”

Jackson said their home, which the couple moved into a year ago, is undergoing renovation and partially submerged into a hillside. The low elevation provided the curious livestock access after first sneaking through a fence that morning.

 “I ran inside and grabbed my phone and basically said to my partner, ‘You need to come out and see this,’” she said. “He came out and turned around and was just shocked; he just started laughing at the fact that we had four sheep on the house, and they were just staring back at us.”

Jackson said she would reinforce the property's boundaries to prevent further animal ventures onto the roof.

“We live in Whitworth, and we back onto the moors, so we do tend to see sheep and cows wandering up and down the road if they’ve got loose,” Jackson said sheepishly.

“It’s a surprise that they’ve come down the driveway, through the fencing and onto the roof, but within five to 10 minutes, as we’d spooked them, they kind of made their way off,” she added.