Naming of Sheep has Consequences

2 potential problems with these but I’ll take them under advisement. Smart sheep isn’t always good. So I’d call Einstein a bit questionable. Flying sheep as in fence jumpers may also be a bit of a problem. Take a look at this ram exiting a trailer at head heigt with perfect show jumper form. :grin:

It sort of does, I have had to deal with sanitizing inputs on the queries when I look up sheep by name in my AnimalTrakker and LambTracker programs. I’ve had it crash before with some odd names so checking Bobby tables is now a standard verification process for all queries.

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Isn’t that an oxymoron? :joy:

Nope, Ask me about Claire, and Coco Puff among numerous irritatingly smart sheep. They learned to follow the guard dogs by crawling under the gate to get to fresh pastures. They also learned to walk in the ditches to go under fences to get out. Most sheep hate to get their feet wet but not these ones.

We’ve had sheep that can work these latches to open the gates to let themselves out.
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Thankfully none of ours have learned to do what one Black Welsh flock learned. To get out of the electric net fence one flock learned to wait until a low on the dominance scale sheep was close to the fence, then all the more the dominant sheep would rush and bowl the poor unfortunate sheep onto the fence, knocking it down and then jump over while the sheep was still down.

Or the Welsh Mountain sheep that learned how to cross cattle guards by lying down and rolling across.

And there is the one thing ALL sheep know and learn faster than you can imagine. If they baa and the shepherd feeds them or moves them to fresh grass then you are ALWAYS greeting with a chorus of poor starving sheep baaing whenever you go up to see them even though many are standing hip deep in fresh alfalfa and grasses and dropping grass and alfalfa out of their mouthes as they baa. BTDT

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They know a sucker when they see one. :laughing:

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Indeed, our current ram started charging the Grand Pyrénées guard dogs and kept it up despite some serious bites. He met his maker this week.

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I stand corrected. I know nothing about sheep but have always heard they were not the brightest bulbs on the farm but apparently that is an unfair stereotype! :grinning:

Sheep have been domesticated for nearly as long as dogs, many thousands of years before other species. So they have a long history of figuring out how to manipulate their “masters”. As small prey animals they do have different behaviors but even that isn’t a given. Because of their long domestication there are almost as many breeds and types of sheep as there are of dogs and the behaviors match. I think they have just decided that it is in their best interests to appear dumb. Often the things humans find dumb are actually very good adaptations once you think of it from the sheeps’ point of view. The tightly flocking breeds are less individually intelligent compared to breeds that are non-flocking. It has to do with the environments they were bred to live in.

I love my non-flocking, irritatingly smart sheep but the breed isn’t for everyone.

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For what it is worth, I love reading your posts–they add a wonderfully delightful and unique perspective to this forum!

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You were fleeced into believing this, it seems.

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That is so baa d. :joy:

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Don’t call one Jabba the Hutt just in case.

Since this is the best we have for a sheep thread, here’s a beautiful news video involving sheep:

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