10 facts about sheep – Foundation for Animal Welfare in Germany
- Sheep belong to the group of herbivores, which means they only eat plants. Their natural diet consists mainly of grass, herbs, fresh branches, seeds, grains, hay, roots, tubers and other plants.
- Sheep are very gentle animals and were among the first animals to be domesticated by man.
- A male sheep is called a buck or a ram, the female animal is called a ewe, a meadow or a goat.
- They are very social animals, forming friendships, rarely fighting each other and feeling sad when one of their herd members dies.
- Sheep are capable of making conscious decisions. Their brain size and structure is similar to that of some primate species.
- Just like goats, sheep have horizontally elongated pupils and sideways eyes. As flight animals, they have a wider field of vision to escape potential predators.
- Sheep spend most of their time eating, only have short sleep phases of half an hour each, are very sensitive to the weather and get nervous when a thunderstorm threatens.
- Studies have found that sheep can feel different emotions such as fear, anger, despair, boredom, disgust and happiness.
- Sheep have highly developed facial recognition skills. They develop individual sympathies, can remember at least 50 faces of their own kind and ten of people for two years or more. They are also able to distinguish facial features.
- Lambs get up just a few minutes after birth to feed from the mother’s udder. A typical cue when things are going well while drinking is tail wagging.