This week on the farm we had our first lambs of the season born. Molly, who has never given birth to twins, gave birth to two little boys on Easter Sunday. Which prompted this week’s post about sheep.
Sheep are ruminants meaning that they have 4 chambers in their stomach to assist with digestion. This process combines mastication (chewing with teeth) and fermentation to increase the amounts of nutrients received from eating plants. Sheep are usually kept for wool production, meat, and/or milk. Here on the farm, we tend to use their wool most often and shear the sheep in the spring. Wild sheep tend to come in shades of brown while domesticated sheep have a variety of colors from dark browns to white. Humans began selectively breeding sheep to have lighter coats to make it easier to dye the wool.
Sheep have a five month gestation period. Since our sheep were bred in mid-December, we should expect more lambs to arrive soon. We only have one ram, Perry, in the Quiet Valley herd. Male rams often fight to establish dominance by ramming or headbutting each other. So, by only having one ram on the premises, conflicts within the herd are greatly reduced, maintaining safety for these animals, visitors, and the staff who care for them. Most female sheep, or ewes, have one to two lambs at a time. Most lambs are born with long tails which are docked short for health reasons. (If tails are left long, fecal matter can build up and encourage disease from flies.)
According to the University of Illinois, sheep are rather intelligent animals. They rank right under pigs, which are considered one of the most intelligent mammals. Sheep can easily recognize faces and facial expressions. We experienced this the other day during one of our programs. When I walked through the room where the class was taking place, the sheep bleated very loudly, startling all of us. She was saying hello and reminding me to feed her.
Sheep play a big part in our culture from religious symbols to childhood songs to truck brands and even sayings. If you think about it, there are quite a number of sayings related to sheep. To be sheepish is to be shy. The black sheep in a group or family is the out of place person. You can count sheep when you need to fall asleep. And perhaps my favorite is that a group of people who go along with something without thinking are called sheeple. So that’s a little bit about sheep.