Why do sheep need so much help?

[SleepingStandingUp]

Farmers always have to be there to look after them, seemingly more so for other animals (based on watching Down on the Farm) but why? Is it how they've been bred? Do they all need the same help really but it isn't talked about? Have cows and pigs got better PR? What would the death rate be like if all the sheep were left to give birth alone?

I'm not Ewe shaming, we should all be entitled to a little help.

Loving this thread! My townie dh never believes me when I tell him that sheep are the thickest animal out there, hell bent on suicide!

Our local Facebook page usually has a plea for the farmer to go check on some sheep, this particular flock seem to escape through a fence then as soon as the farmer goes to rescue them,nip back again😀

some pigs escaped the other week which was new

Sheep are stupid

I live rurally in Cumbria and there are pleas on Facebook at least once a day to rescue a sheep that's got itself stuck somewhere, or who has escaped and wandered into someone's house or garden.

Often you rescue them and they wander straight back to where they got stuck so you have to do it all over agin 🤣

This year was pretty catastrophic for lambing for us. I have a small herd of Suffolk and Suffolk crosses, with never more than 12 ewes. Naturally bred so lambing over 2 months in the coldest part of the winter. Often one gets rejected but as long as I do the bottle bit Mum will take care of it.

I spend a lot of time in developing lead sheep as they are crucial to easy management. Often it's me. They won't go over into anything dark cos it might be a hole. They'll follow me into a dark barn.

When they get sick they are very resistant to getting better. The vet comes a lot some years.

They are stupendously greedy.

I can manage them by myself for most things unless they find an unanticipated treat on route.

And I can't recommend enough Sandi Brock on YouTube and Instagram. She's a Canadian indoor sheep farmer. Lovely to watch.

Loving this thread. Grew up in Devon, surrounded by farmers sheep and yes I always thought they were just really dim. He was forever pulling them out, saving them, next day....

So, if I wanted to keep a handful of sheep... (I wouldn't be wanting to eat or breed them).

I'd need them sheered and there's no market for the wool.

If I wasn't breeding... say I was rescuing...

Can they potter in my secure garden, eating everything they can get at?
Will they still need lots of vet attention if they are kept shorn and not bred?

I dream of a return to the country with chickens and a handful of low maintenance animals. Do sheep fit the bill? Will they keep my lawn mowed?

I guess I'm asking because it's anonymous and I don't want my brother to laugh me out of the house. He has a small holding.

Your garden will need to be free of toxic ornamental plants and very, very securely fenced to make it a suitable place to keep sheep - they are good at finding escape routes... your garden unless it is a large and well managed set of paddocks is unlikely to provide them with all the nutrition they need, so some thought/ research may be needed there, also think about whether you can provide them with adequate housing for winter, storage space for feed and bedding, etc.

You might need to know somebody who is willing to teach you or help you re good trimming, shearing etc, as it might prove impossible to find professionals who are willing to travel to you for the sake of 1 or 2 sheep rather than a couple of hundred (financially not worth it for them!).

But yes, not breeding from them will remove one method of killing themselves/ causing trouble!

I do know a farmer (not a sheep farmer) who ended up with an (eventually) elderly pet sheep which was pretty amusing and worked out well, although bearing in mind she had a full farm to live on.

In the gentlest possible way, he probably will laugh you out of the house, for all the reasons everybody has mentioned above!!
And if you blindly adopt some sheep from somewhere and just stick them in your garden and hope for the best, then yes, you can expect disaster to follow.
But at the same time, if you really do your research, and are open to learning from farmers/professionals, then you may well shut your brother up

Out of interest what do you keep them for? Other than cuteness obviously?

I believe you need permission as they're livestock. A garden probably won't be big enough - you'll need a decent sized field as they need a lot of grass.

Your land would also need to be really secure - the sheep here are always escaping and disappearing elsewhere - what happens if they destroy your fence and end up poisoning themselves by eating next doors plants?!

they will keep your lawn mowed and eat pretty much any other plants as well.

There will be sheep poo everywhere which will attract a lot of flies

They will rub themselves on any structures leaving wisps of wool everywhere.

They will need to be sheared and you will probably have to learn to do it yourself of bribe a local farmer to have yours done at the same time theirs are done.

If you keep them in a small area and don't have room to move them to fresh pastures frequently they will need supplementary feeding in the form of hay/ haylage/ silage and possibly concentrates and licks. They will probably need this in winter regardless of how much space you have.

They will need treating regularly for clostridial diseases. This will mostly involve you or someone else having to squirt drench down their throats which they don't like and definitely won't stand still and patiently while you do it so you will need to have some sort of way of penning them while you do it.

Ditto treating them for mites/lice/fly strike etc. This involves either dipping them in lethal stuff, injecting with lethal stuff or pouring pretty lethal stuff on to them - see above regarding needing sheep handling equipment.

They will get bad feet and you will need to treat this. This often involves dealing with maggots. Ditto fly strike.

You will need get a CPH number from the rural payments agency and you have to register a movement every time you move them off your CPH.

If they die you will have to have them removed by a fallen stock operator.

depending on the breed sheep wool has mostly little value but has great uses in gardening such as in mulches, frost protection and it can be composted. You won't have a garden left to do any of that if you have sheep in it but you could always pass it on to a neighbour.

Yes, that all sounds a bit impractical. But then what's retirement for if not being impractical?!

I'll have to see where we end up, and who our neighbours are.

We want a bit more space around us, which means having a bigger plot, which means more garden management... I'd like a secure pretty/veg growing garden, and a paddock for sheep/goats/chickens.

I'm sure it won't happen, but it's a nice pipe dream.

I've lived opposite sheep and next door to free range chickens. The noise and smell and flies is pretty much what living rurally is about. I miss all that- grew up with it and didn't get all citified til I was 30.

I'm just so sick of hearing everyone else's phone conversations and vacuum cleaners and house alarms.

Please make sure you learn how to look after them before getting them. A woman around here got some sheep as pets and they ended up in a terrible state because she had no idea what she was doing. Multiple people reported her to the RSPCA and eventually she gave them up.

Oh @antelopevalley I'm the most responsible person in the world. If I were to get sheep, they'd be the best looked after sheep in the world. The risk would be me sleeping in the shed with them.

Does anyone remember Barbara Woodhouse? She used to wash her cows rear ends, udders and tails with warm soapy water, earring her the scorn of local farmers. I'd be veering that way...

@myplace glad to hear it!
I remember Barbara Woodhouse.

To the farmers - do you lose a lot of sheep to traffic? We live in a village and up to Durham borders. Bank holiday weekend and we were taking it 40/50 mph on winding roads which have higher speed limit which we did on straight open area. but saw so many dead sheep and lambs. Yes I’m sure sometimes there are emergencies but it just seemed reckless

The sheep definitely had no road sense and yes death wish.

This really needs to go on classics. What a wonderful thread!

I'm so glad this is bread has cheered so many people up

We had a pet sheep who thought she was a pony. Well she preferred to be with them rather than with the other sheep.
It didn’t stop her getting into endless scrapes though.

@picklemewalnuts one word … llamas

www.llamatrekking.co.uk/buying-breeding-sales/

what about llamas? Are they just glorified sheep?

I have a big garden. I want a flock of something. This is all too fascinating to not be able to join in.

@picklemewalnuts that's why Clarkson got a herd of sheep in Clarkson's Farm, to stop him mowing his meadow.

He soon learned!

Clever toddlers, wild adolescents, needy adults
God, this is me! 😂

I've always thought farmers might save time by dividing their grazing fields into two and adding revolving door to keep their sheep entertained.