Like us, sheep experience fear when they're separated from their social groups or approached by strangers. Sheep's heart rates have been found to increase by 20 beats per minute when they're unable to see any members of their flock and by 84 beats per minute when approached by a man and a dog.
When faced with such situations, docile sheep can become agitated and may even rush people who are trying to work with them. Sheep are prey animals and their natural instinct is to flee when in a situation they perceive as dangerous.
Sheep are prey animals, largely defenceless against predators and naturally nervous and easily frightened. They flock together for safety. Sheep have a 'flight zone' – the distance they keep from a potential threat such as a person or sheepdog - which varies depending how wild the sheep are.
TWO: Sheep are naturally friendly. They can wag their tails, like dogs, and they form strong bonds with other sheep, goats…and people.
Sheep are prey animals, which means they are naturally always on the lookout for danger and feel the need to stay protected within their flock. Due to this fact, your sheep may appear quite frightened, especially when you first bring him or her home.
Sheep are frightened by sudden loud noises, such as yelling or barking. In response to loud noises and other unnatural sounds, sheep become nervous and more difficult to handle.
As with some other animals such as dogs and monkeys, sheep are social animals that can recognise other sheep as well as familiar humans.
They can interpret emotions on the faces of other sheep and can remember sheep faces over years. They can also discriminate human faces, even when those faces are shown to them in different orientations. Sheep are emotional animals and, like us, can feel optimistic or pessimistic based on their prior experiences.
Incidents of humans being attacked by sheep are rare. While sheep (female) are generally very docile, nonag- gressive animals, this may not always be the case with rams (male), especially before and during the mating season, that is, when they are introduced into a herd with females or a group of rams.
Defend Yourself From a Ram
If he's backing away, this usually means that he's about to charge. Don't run toward him and don't run away from him. You may want to wave a stick at him as he charges. This may distract him enough as he considers his next move.
Signs of fear
∎ Include immobilization, attempts to escape a situation, shivering and foot-stamping. stand immobile, staring forward, with their ears pricked. persistently and behave aggressively with head- butting, rearing, stamping and kicking.
To help the sheep calm down, leave them in the yards for about 30 minutes before working with them, if possible. Calm sheep are more likely to move smoothly through the yard and less likely to move abruptly or charge gates, fences or people.
Sheep are complex and intelligent animals. Sheep are hooved mammals with woolly coats who feel a wide range of emotions, from anger to boredom and happiness.
Never trot or canter through fields of sheep unless they are distant enough to be undisturbed by you – keep checking and walk if you are disturbing them. Sheep are most likely to avoid horses and riders or run from intruders in their field.
Avoiding predators
Sheep flock closely together whenever they feel threatened, and try to maintain a 'flight distance' between themselves and a potential threat.
Again, because of their instinct to stay close together sheep will move toward another sheep or a perceived friend. Often times a friend can be a person, particularly if the person feeds the sheep. By using this instinct, shepherds have controlled sheep movement for centuries.
The ram may see this as a challenge or aggressive behavior. To a ram, a person is part of the flock and he wants to dominate.
Contrary to popular misconception, sheep are extremely intelligent animals capable of problem solving. They are considered to have a similar IQ level to cattle and are nearly as clever as pigs. Like various other species including humans, sheep make different vocalizations to communicate different emotions.
Sheep are very gentle animals and were one of the first animals to be domesticated. They can differentiate facial expressions, and prefer a smile to a frown.
Sheep strongly dislike dogs and, even if apparently grazing nonchalantly, will eventually move away from a stationary dog. A ewe with a young lamb is probably the most difficult sheep of all to move, so it's wise to avoid this situation with a trainee dog if at all possible.
There were also various other tasks looked at in the journal of Learning & Behaviour, such as releasing food with a string and being able to recognise human faces. The overall conclusion was that dogs are no smarter than pigs, sheep, or pigeons. Sorry, fido!
Despite some popular beliefs, sheep are intelligent animals with great memories. Research has shown that sheep can recognize up to 50 other sheep faces, and remember them for two years. They are even able to recognize human faces!
Sheep have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them. When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows, even if it is not a good "decision." For example, sheep will follow each other to slaughter.
We have been able to demonstrate in behavioural choice maze experiments some ability of sheep to distinguish between sheep and human voices (Kendrick et al. 1995).