Wild Facts

Buckle up and put your helmets on because we are heading out to the farm to learn about Domestic Sheep.  This will be a fun and exciting trip and if you are lucky, you might even get to hear a few baaaaaaad puns! You are probably thinking that the domestic sheep can’t be that interesting since it has been influenced by man.  If you stick around I will show you how these domestic sheep are different than their wild counterparts.

Currently it is estimated that their are over 1 billion sheep living on our great green earth.  Most of these sheep are likely found on commercial sheep farms located in New Zealand, Australia, North America and the United Kingdom. I want you to think about that number for a second. One billion sheep are alive right now.  To put this into perspective, the United States of America only has about 309 million people living there while India has a population slightly over 1 billion.  Pretty crazy when you put that into perspective, eh?

This domestication has caused sheep to retain some of the traits that were normally an attribute of their young ones. Don’t worry, this isn’t that bad since humans experience the same thing.  Our larger heads and late arrival of our teeth are examples of this phenomenon known as neoteny.  Domestic sheep are also more colourful than wild sheep.  The free and wild sheep are usually variations of brown (how boring) but domestic sheep can be white, brown or even spotted.  This colouring is much more exciting if you ask me.

Farmed sheep still have some qualities that can be found in wild sheep.  For instance their senses are similar.  Sheep have good hearing and excellent peripheral vision. I think the most interesting sheep sense has to be their sense of smell.  They actually have scent glands just in front of their eyes and on their feet! The reason for these uniquely placed scent glands is unknown, however, researchers predict that they play a role during mating.  As well, it has been postulated that the scent glands on the feet help secrete a scent marker so lost sheep can find their way back to the flock. Too bad Hansel and Gretel didn’t have scent glands on their feet. And you thought domesticated sheep wouldn’t be interesting.

I hope you enjoyed today’s domestic version of Wild Facts!  We will be back to close the week with a more wild animal tomorrow.  Have a great day!