Sheep and Their People
Sheep are unique animals with a rich past and it would seem have been with us since time immemorial. Pick up any history book and you are bound to see a reference to sheep. It is thought that after the dog, sheep and goats were the next animals to be domesticated. For over 10,000 years they have provided humanity with companionship, food and clothing.
It has been shown that sheep process facial images in ways similar to us making use of complex visual clues from the face to recognize each other, and other familiar animals. It has been estimated that they can recognize at least 100 different individuals, flock members, companion animals and humans. They can also remember associations with specific faces for several years (source: Babraham Institute, Cambridge, England). Shepherds who live with their sheep are common throughout the world from Europe to Africa to South America to the western United States. In the Mediterranean tradition of the transhumance the sheep are taken into the high mountains during the summer and returned to the valleys in the fall. In other areas sheep are taken to pasture during the day and returned to a protective corral at night. Shepherds have been following these traditions for centuries and have developed strong feeling for their sheep. An old staying among the shepherds is: "...sheep obey no man. They obey the stars."
Sheep are nature's gifts to the environment. Sheep hooves are split allowing them to climb steep inclines with ease. Natural grazers, sheep roam the lands eating clover, alfalfa, grass and brush. They have no top front teeth so that they can eat vegetation close to the ground while preventing them from accidentally pulling up plant roots and destroying the lands that they graze. They are friends of the earth and instinctively manage the land they graze. Grazing sheep can thin smothering overgrowth, eat noxious weeds dangerous to other livestock, help nourish wildlife by encouraging the growth of healthy forage and recycle vital nutrients back into the soil. Sheep are a safe, natural and effective alternative to chemicals.