Why do sheep need so much help?

Cats sleep. And they keep you company at night by purring gently as they steal your pillow and the heat from your head.

Yes exactly!! Sheep are basically the reason why our countryside looks the way it does, the Enclosure Act and all that.
Rich landowners turning poor workers off their land so they could make boundaries, plant hedges and turn them into fields for sheep, as we started to use wool a lot more. Read the final Shardlake novel for a great insight.

My friend keeps sheep and she says 'sheep just want to die'.

They are fragile little beings.

I like the sound of that book. Going to order it now. Thank you!

Ylvamoon · 29/06/2022 22:54

Reading this thread, I believe we humans have it all wrong when it comes to sheep.
Roaming the hills? Being kept in a field? Having a restricted diet of grass and being called dim on a regular basis?
Come on!
There has to be more to sheep. Why knocking their confidence right, left and centre?
I read a wonderful book called Three Bags Full, by Naomi Swann, about a flock of Irish sheep who turn detective to work out who murdered their farmer. It is utterly delightful.

"psychopathic geniuses with the desire to torment you on a daily basis."

I have a cat for that.

There's a reason why the Devil is portrayed as having a Goat's head/horns, you know.

You either have needy and suicidal sheep or psychopathic geniuses with the desire to torment you on a daily basis.

And I'm loving this thread, it's fascinating. I know nowt about sheep, having always lived in cities.

I bloody love goats, mind. I have a pipe dream of moving to a house with land and keeping a few goats.

I had an ex like that.

We live in a place where the sheep are free to roam, they are very clever at getting into our garden and eating any veg I have been trying to grow. They can also jump way higher than I would have believed. I love seeing them come up the road, or sitting on my drive, but I'm going to need a bigger fence before I get planting again!

Someone I know acquired 5 or 6 ewes once, thinking it would be fun to become a hobby farmer. She was experienced with horses, dogs, chickens etc, so what could go wrong?

By the end of spring they had required a vet to assist all but one in a series of utterly disastrous lambings. Nothing to do with mismanagement; just the type of repeated random bad luck that sheep utterly delight in.

I would say my friend could write a chapter or two on sheep obstetrics now, but it would be stained with writer's tears!!

"Pobble about" is my new favourite verb

Of course there's more to sheep. They're arguably one of the reasons for why Britain became a prosperous country, and they still shape our landscape. Think of the lovely villages and fine churches of places like the Cotswolds and Suffolk, the remnants of magnificent monasteries in North Yorkshire - they were built on the woolly backs of sheep.

We added tasty.

God they're just spectacularly stupid creatures aren't they. I'm a horsey person and have lost count of the times I've got off and gone into a field to rescue one from whatever predicament it's got itself into. Have pulled loads out of fences where they've got their heads stuck. Helped one give birth much to my horse's bemusement. Have herded up and put into random fields ones that have escaped. Stopped my car and chased them off the main road where they were trotting along with a queue of about 100 cars behind them. Etc etc etc etc.

My DD once was out and came across one stuck on its back, she knew no different so had just stood looking at it thinking it was funny, I had to make her go back and pull it over (it was fine).

Reading this thread, I believe we humans have it all wrong when it comes to sheep.

Roaming the hills? Being kept in a field? Having a restricted diet of grass and being called dim on a regular basis?
Come on!
There has to be more to sheep. Why knocking their confidence right, left and centre?

I often wonder if the people born and bred on Shetland are as naughty, stubborn and cunning as their animals! Shetland ponies aren’t known as Shitlands for nothing!

Sheep local to us have mastered the art of jumping over the cattle grid

Have been toying with the idea of acquiring a small flock (say four ewes) to populate our otherwise-unoccupied paddock. Can’t decide whether this thread has encouraged me or put me off.

OK so,
Clever toddlers, wild adolescents, needy adults. Death wish caused by regret that wild adolescence has passed, and stupidity.

Of course 🐑🐏🐑🐏

I personally think sheep only pretend to be dim. Ours pobble about all innocently when really they are secretly plotting new ways to escape or die, bonus points if they can die by escaping. The ring leaders are herdwicks who can jump over any obstacles leading those less built for jumping to attempt ever more ridiculous ways to follow.

Lambs on the other hand don't even disguise their cunning, they are smart little buggers hell bent on escape to raid the polytunnels. (Once a few weeks old they postpone the death wish until adulthood for an adolescence of sheer hell raising)

Even Masham sheep, a very old breed, have a propensity to want to die. They are more likely to give birth without help, but they are still stupid. So I do not think it is mainly about breeding. I just think they are not very bright animals.

Kiwis are like this too. Totally stupid and seem determined to kill themselves. When you watch them you realise why they are so endangered.

I think wild sheep were probably like wild rabbits, a lot of them just die every year. The mothering is interesting too. Generally, if a ewe has had a caring good mother, she will be a good and caring mother too. But some of the ewes just abandon their lambs or stand eating grass ignoring their lost lamb bleating away trying to find them.

In Britain, we farm sheep relatively intensively. So smaller herds, but give them more help to survive and remain healthy. In some countries like New Zealand, some farmers have enormous herds that are free-range, and they give them very little help. Just some basic care like worming. They just accept more animals dying.

I think TV programmes probably concentrate on sheep births more than other farm animals as it usually happens over a short period of a few weeks in the spring, so if the cameras and film crew set up in the lambing shed at that time they know they are going to get plenty of footage. Cattle and pigs give birth all year round so it's going to be harder to catch the right moment with them. With any animal it's a case of leaving them to get on with the job naturally themselves but keep a close eye on what's happening and then use your judgement as to when intervention is needed if things don't seem to be progressing well. I do agree with others that sheep are incredibly stupid with an amazing repertoire of ways to die.