The sheep that I know are very friendly. The flock is now about 9, having been about 16 a couple of years ago. My stepsister loves them and introduced me to them. If you walk quietly and gently into the field, and kneel and look unthreatening, they will comms to you. Some are friendlier than others, some too shy. But some will come over and get petted like a lovely soft dog. Beware, some will even try to kiss you!
Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#22> 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…
Typical science articles bullshit we see around all the time. The funny thing is the author is technically not lying because I am sure we could find "many", that is, at least 2, humans who can't recognize more than 50 faces.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Growing up an a hobby farm with 20-40 (depending on the time of year), this is my experience too. Lambs are playful and full of spunk, but as they grow older they quickly become full-time grazing machines. Rams are just vicious.
Classic HN here that no matter how obscure the topic, we have posts from 3 different people with real world experience.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#24Well, regardless, if one of my sheep walks to the end of a 20 foot fence and around it to the other side, then wants to come back when I wave a bucket of grain at it, it stares at me through the fence in utter consternation as to how it can pass by this impossible barrier, then starts pacing back and forth anxiously as though lamenting its misfortune at being caught in such a complex trap.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Growing up an a hobby farm with 20-40 (depending on the time of year), this is my experience too. Lambs are playful and full of spunk, but as they grow older they quickly become full-time grazing machines. Rams are just vicious.
Classic HN here that no matter how obscure the topic, we have posts from 3 different people with real world experience.
My favorite was the person who happened to be burning a boat for fuel when it was being debated whether a crew could survive a shipwreck for years by using the ship as a fuel source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10803552
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#26Twenty 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…
There are stories of one sheep doing this in the UK and then a week later all of them doing it - usually the solution is to dig the void under the grid deeper so the sheep don't dare risk falling.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Growing up an a hobby farm with 20-40 (depending on the time of year), this is my experience too. Lambs are playful and full of spunk, but as they grow older they quickly become full-time grazing machines. Rams are just vicious.
Aggressive rams are partially a byproduct of testosterone and selective breeding, some small scale farmers will leave rams in with ewes and their newborns to protect them from predators.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#28I grew up on a sheep farm. I disagree with this article. I found them to be almost pathologically fatalistic and idiotic. Perhaps there's something to be said about domestication having a negative cognitive effect, or inbreeding, or some other factor. But these animals were not intelligent.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#29Twenty 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
The very next video youtube suggested shows two sheep, surrounded by lush green fields, climbing onto steep, wet rocks on a hillside in an attempt to reach some grass in the middle of the rocks. One of the sheep falls, presumably to its death or at least to a significant injury. They may be clever, but they seem... dumb.
Re: Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either
#30The sheep that I know are very friendly. The flock is now about 9, having been about 16 a couple of years ago. My stepsister loves them and introduced me to them. If you walk quietly and gently into the field, and kneel and look unthreatening, they will comms to you. Some are friendlier than others, some too shy. But some will come over and get petted like a lovely soft dog. Beware, some will even try to kiss you!
So that's how it starts.