Our immediate neighbours, relations of my wife and about a decade younger than us, keep half a dozen sheep, unprepossessing at present after a recent shear. In fact they are a right bunch of spivs, often to be seen leaning on corners of the house in the mud behind it, plotting their next bit of fence vandalism and looking as if they've just dogged their cigarettes.
Number 18, the smallest but smartest ewe, did a runner the other day and was tracked down by my cousin-in-law to a neighbouring farmer's field, containing his much bigger flock and some reasonable looking grass. It followed her back to the electric strand but refused to cross it even when she had laid it on the ground. It touched the wire with its nose and jumped back.
Undeterred, my c-i-l jumped back and forth over the wire a few times to show the sheep how to do it without getting a shock, and after a few demonstrations the sheep followed suit.
'The only time I've ever got a sheep to do anything without having to involve food,' she told us over drinks that evening. I am impressed though not only by the sheep's willingness to understand its owner's communication but also my c-i-l's faith in the sheep's goodwill and intellect.
I feel there is a lesson here for world leaders among others.
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Pleased to see you're becoming quite the countryman these days AC. You'll know when the transition is complete when you lose the ability to parallel park and develop a taste for rough cider.
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.....and develope that certain ' countryman's fondness ' for the sheep you talk about !
Ted
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Actually our neighbours also complained about their hopeless, wimpish, possibly sexually perverse ram.
I wondered whether this was a common problem, and speculated that it was perhaps hardly surprising when Falklanders and Welshmen ran out of patience and tried to do it themselves.
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And Ted, that chap done for doing a horse the other day: that wouldn't have been your pal Big Ron would it? Just curious...
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Funny thing this intelligence.
Chickens are worth watching. One the one hand they are so dim, that chickens who've never been out of the run take an age to work out that they can when the door is first opened. On the other, they can learn in about an hour to tell which container has the food in by looking at the symbol on the paper cover, only pecking through the right ones.
People are even stranger. They can invent iPhones but their stupidity appears boundless.
Most farmers will tell you that sheep of all animals have an impulse to do themselves in, in a variety of ways.
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>>> sheep of all animals have an impulse to do themselves in, in a variety of ways.
Indeed... a death wish from birth so to speak.
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Bred for too much wool and too much meat, their wool gets badly caught in brambles and barbed wire and they aren't as athletic as they might be. That's why they need kind (up to a point) and intelligent owners.
I can remember a very small lamb going down a buried horizontal pipe in some abandoned waterworks until, well out of reach, it met an obstruction but simply didn't know how to reverse. Eventually, on a cold, rainy day, three or four fire brigade vehicles and ten men including a senior officer parked in a muddy field and after much trial and error used their chimney-fire equipment to get a hook round the lamb and rod it out along with half a gallon of liquid mud. Having cost the taxpayer a good couple of grand to rescue a lamb worth 50p, the firemen were extremely happy and pleased with themselves.
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there are sheep, and sheep, and then there's shaun...
www.shaunthesheep.com/
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There was a story, years ago, that sheep had found out that cattle grids could be rendered ineffective by lying down and rolling over them. True or rural myth?
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>> There was a story, years ago, that sheep had found out that cattle grids could
>> be rendered ineffective by lying down and rolling over them. True or rural myth?
>>
I had hoped to find something on you tube, but they are obviously camera shy.
This would seem to back up the theory that they can though:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3938591.stm
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To quote from the link above; "A National Sheep Association spokeswoman said: "Sheep are quite intelligent creatures and have more brainpower than people are willing to give them credit for." "
What does this say for the National Sheep Association? They can obviously act as 'employers' of creatures with the power of speech:)
Just as an aside - I note AC used the verb 'to dog' in the original post. Is this his creativity coming to the fore, or just olde english usage?
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Nah, nah, it's like when the sarmajor comes in the guard room and everyone dogs their cigarettes against their bootheels, fans the air ineffectually and preserves the dog-end for later.
Innit?
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I'm perversely enjoying limiting myself to ten cigarettes a week at present. I'm at this very moment smoking one with an accompanying Gordon's and tonic. Another rare treat. The thirty year old shrapnel in my left ear has moved again and become infected so I can't swim today and it seemed a suitable excuse. I've taken to "dogging" my cigs again to preserve them.
:-)
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The sheep around here are well known for their cunning and guile. Apparently the ones in the next valley are not to be messed with. These mothers are not known for their fear of the words mint and sauce in the same sentence Local legend has it that they have overcome mere man made anti-sheep technology such as cattle grids hold no fear for them...
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maybe the sheep update their ram?
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>> There was a story, years ago, that sheep had found out that cattle grids could
>> be rendered ineffective by lying down and rolling over them. True or rural myth?
I think that's probably a myth. I have a distant recollection though of seeing a Herdwick trot briskly over one - the sort with fixed flat topped bars rather than circular loose jobbies.
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...I think that's probably a myth...
The BBC report linked by AnotherJohnH (above) has an eye-witness account from a woman in Yorkshire.
And she's a Conservative councillor, so it must be true.
Last edited by: Iffy on Sat 5 Feb 11 at 18:09
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No it's true - there are witnesses in Llanberis ----- They had to come up grids with larger gaps on them.
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And to be fair, no one would question the intimate knowledge of the Welsh when it comes to sheep.
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The Highland Scots aren't averse to a bit either - Haggis is sheep's brains - who in the name of reason etc etc...?
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did these witnesses eat grass?
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...did these witnesses eat grass?...
That comment means I simply have to repeat my tale about the guy who was arrested for messing around with sheep.
He was kept in a police station in County Durham overnight.
In the morning a copper brings him a plate of grass as his breakfast.
"What's that?" asks the bloke.
"Same as your girlfriend's having," replies the officer.
I've filed the story under: 'Too good to check'.
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They can be put to useless purposes:
www.wimp.com/sheeplight/
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Are sheep intellectually underrated? - Runfer D'Hills
