A shepherd claims her ‘psychic sheep’ saved her life by detecting that she had breast cancer.

Alfie, a five-year-old sheep is being hailed a hero by some in the UK and now has a following of hundreds of friends on Facebook.

Emma Turner was giving Alfie some medicine when he suddenly became aggressive and began head-butting her violently in the chest.

“Alfie is normally really well behaved but that particular day he went nuts and it took three of us to hold him down,” she says, according to Metro.

The incident left significant bruising on Turner's chest and it was only then that she noticed a lump in the middle of the bruise.

Alarmed, she went to her local hospital to have the lump checked.

Results from a biopsy confirmed that Ms Turner was suffering from the early stages of breast cancer.

Hospital staff told Turner that if Alfie had not head butted her when he had, the cancer would not have been detected until much later, by which time it would have spread.

Having undergone six months of chemotherapy, Turner now has to have a mastectomy but the upbeat farmer credits Alfie for saving her life.

"Those who say sheep are stupid usually don't know anything about sheep,” she says.

“Alfie is clever - he saved my life.”