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Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

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Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#11

Post by andyjohnson0 »

Twenty plus years ago I was hiking on the North York Moors in England, which is an area where herds of sheep live wild on the moorland for most of the year. I came to a cattle grid (cattle guard in the US [1]) and a group of sheep were crowded at one side, obviously wanting to cross but unable to do so. Lots of baaaing and jostling.

Then one of the sheep did an amazing thing: it lay down and rolled it's body over the cattle grid, then stood at the other side staring at the rest of the group. They didn't follow, and eventually drifted away.

I've never seen or heard of that happening before or since. I sometimes wonder if that sheep was some kind of once-in-a-generation freak: a kind of Leonardo da Vinci outlier.

I like sheep.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_grid

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#12

Post by _rpd »

return0 wrote: post #2

They may not lack intelligence but they are not fun. They are boring. They keep to themselves. They are very "sheepish". They are not emotional, except horny rams. They don't socialize with humans. They are scared of everything. They are herdish and their herd makes dumb decisions. Very few of them are outliers in behavior/intelligence. I grew up with sheep. I 'm sorry sheep, you are dumb.

I am a sheep owner. I like sheep. However, sheep are, in fact, the dumbest mammal I have ever encountered.

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#14

Post by mod »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #9

> found that they can recognise and remember at least 50 individual faces for more than 2 years. That is longer than many humans. What? I was under the impression that humans could generally remember long-term hundreds of faces, if not thousands. You may not always be able to remember everyone's name, but you remember their face. The idea of someone not being able to remember even fifty individual faces sounds bizarr…

Particularly when you haven't seen countless thousands of other faces in the meantime.

As an anecdote, I used to work with large groups of children (summer camps & sports programs). I would allow myself one day to learn all of the new kids' names, which was > 50 at the start of any new thing.

I don't remember all of their names now, after 10-15 years, but I assure you that you could give me a lineup (of them at the time) and I could pick out the kids I worked with. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

I wouldn't have a 100% success rate, no doubt, but I think a very good one.

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#16

Post by merpnderp »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3
return0 wrote: post #2

They may not lack intelligence but they are not fun. They are boring. They keep to themselves. They are very "sheepish". They are not emotional, except horny rams. They don't socialize with humans. They are scared of everything. They are herdish and their herd makes dumb decisions. Very few of them are outliers in behavior/intelligence. I grew up with sheep. I 'm sorry sheep, you are dumb.

goats are way more entertaining. i grew up working on a farm that had about 20 head of sheep, 20 nubian goats for milk, and a handful of pygmies for meat. Goats are fascinating. Sheep largely keep to themselves.

I used to have 7 and just handed off my last two to another hobby farm. Even after 9 years Red my oldest doe, was friendly, curious, and very social. Sundance, her oldest wether, was playful and very dog like.

Goats make great pets.

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#17

Post by merpnderp »

Xeoncross wrote: post #13

My experience is sheep are fear driven and goats are lust driven. As a heard, sheep easily panic and run while goats will knock electric fence down to get at food.

I had a goat that would crawl on her side under an electric, wiggling an inch at a time, bellowing every time the fence would shock her, but determined to get at the same grass on the other side of the fence that was on her side.

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#18

Post by tokenizerrr »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #11

Twenty plus years ago I was hiking on the North York Moors in England, which is an area where herds of sheep live wild on the moorland for most of the year. I came to a cattle grid (cattle guard in the US [1]) and a group of sheep were crowded at one side, obviously wanting to cross but unable to do so. Lots of baaaing and jostling. Then one of the sheep did an amazing thing: it lay down and rolled it's body over the…

From the article you linked:

> While these barriers are usually effective for cattle,[23] they can fail due to ingenious animals. Sheep searching for food have been known to roll over grids, jump across them, step carefully into the spaces[24] or run along the side of grids as wide as 8 feet (2.4 m).

[24] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rIbZWblPaA

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#19

Post by nickpsecurity »

Animats wrote: post #10

Domestic sheep have been bred to produce more wool, not jump fences, and to be herd-bound and submissive. That started millennia ago.[1] Unless you find wild sheep, you're not seeing the normal animal; you're seeing a human-created meat and wool machine. [1] http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/

That's a great point we should never forget with agriculture and livestock. Many of these things are a watered-down form of what's found in nature.

Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

#20

Post by [deleted] »

telesilla wrote: post #4
return0 wrote: post #2

They may not lack intelligence but they are not fun. They are boring. They keep to themselves. They are very "sheepish". They are not emotional, except horny rams. They don't socialize with humans. They are scared of everything. They are herdish and their herd makes dumb decisions. Very few of them are outliers in behavior/intelligence. I grew up with sheep. I 'm sorry sheep, you are dumb.

I also grew up around large flocks of sheep and found that when you isolate a young lamb and socialize it: lots of fun. Socialized lambs will recognize human friends and will respond to a given name and hang around and play. But after a year or two, after any time spent back with the flock, they forget humans and revert to being one with the herd. Older isolated sheep just get mean and end up being lawnmowers if not…

[deleted]
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