Sheep: Animal behaviour and problems.

      General information

      The sheep is an excellent landscape gardener. With his       "golden claw" he works on the soil in an advantageous way       and with his lawnmower way of eating he prevents the       meadows from becoming wild with shrubbery. He supplies       us with meat, wool and milk for the production of sheep's milk       cheese. Nowadays, the leg of lamb is 20 x more important       than the wool.

      The milk sheep is rare and does not count much       quantitatively. Globally seen, there are over a billion sheep!

Social behaviour

The sheep is a distinctive flock animal. In case of transhumance in the winter months the norm is that the flock is kept and guided by the shepherd and his dog, in case of paddock grazing they are free-range sheep and the flock is left unsupervised. Thanks to his good-naturedness, the sheep can pasture also together with horses or cattle. Within the flock small groups of related females are formed. A social ranking is not clearly visible as it is the case with chickens.

Behavioural disturbances

In contrast to pigs and hens, sheep, as a rule, are kept under not very much restricted conditions. The time of housing is limited to wintertime. That is why disturbances resulting from bad ownership are rare. On the other hand, the feared scrapie, as it occurs in Australia, leads to an abnormal hahaviour.

Man-Animal communication

The shepherd within his flock is one of the most touching sights to demonstrate the taking care of animals. Together with his sheepdog, the shephered is fully accepted by the sheep as "bellwether", i. e. as leader of the flock. He knows all about the language he must use to communicate with his pets. With only a few signs and sounds the communication between the shepherd and the sheep works perfectly. It is a real joy to observe occasionally this peaceful image.

Animals "talk" to their fellow species by body posture, position of the tail, facial expression, vocalization and many more. If the human being has the postion of companion and substitute for fellow species, then he must try to make up a little bit for the big deficit. The easiest way to do this is to talk calmly to his pets. Just the way he would talk with other human beings. Animals are extremely capable of learning and understand very quickly what words, the tone of voice and gestures want to say.

Undesirable behaviour

If meadows challenge the lambs feed in the stable, it is possible to prepare a small feeding table for the lambs. This is a selective wall model where only lambs' heads fit in. Restlessness or even panic can occur in a flock when the sheep are separated from their flock comrades. This is, of course, an undesired behaviour, corresponds, however, to the nature of the flock animal sheep. As a rule, cubs and dams find each other without any difficulty.

Mood barometer

It is possible that the term "mood" coined by men does not apply to sheep. One would rather speak of "state". The sheep is either hungry and eats by slowly walking through the pasture, or he wants to rest (sleep or ruminate). That's all. It's true that one can observe that the ram or the boss sheep of a group vigorously paws the ground with his his forelegs, if something does not please him (e.g. stranger on pasture).

Psychology of animals

In order to better understand the sheep and his species-specific nature, it is recommendable to study the behaviour of wild sheep in the flock under the guidance of a "bellwether" in more detail, i. e. to read books about it. It is also a fact that in the course of the many thousand of years domestication, the basic nature of the sheep as a flock animal has hardly changed. If we recognize the natural needs of the animal, we already are on our way to a psychologically correct behaviour.