Flock of Sheep Walking on Road

A flock of sheep walking on the road | Travel Photography

Most of us must have heard a very famous rhythm “baa baa black sheep“. Am I right? So, Today I am going to share surprising facts about sheep that you may not have heard about this cute-looking animal and also share a photo of a flock of sheep (group of sheep) that I have taken during the visit to Bhichri temple near Rajkot. Sheep are a strongly gregarious and social animal. Sometime or in someplace, you may have seen a herd of sheep walking together or eating grass or running across a vast land.

Sheep terminology

A female sheep is called a ewe and male sheep is called a ram. The process of giving birth to lambs is called lambing. The first milk is called colostrum. A group of sheep is called a flock.

Sheep scientific classification

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Mammalia
Order	Artiodactyla
Family	Bovidae
Subfamily	Caprinae
Genus	Ovis
Species	O. aries
Scientific Name	Ovis aries

Sheep facts and commonly asked questions

How many sheep breeds are there?
In the world, More than 200 different breeds of sheep in existence.

Are sheep the dumbest animals?
Many of us heard that sheep are stupid but That’s not true. In reality, they are really very intelligent, with memory and recognition skills. One study by Keith Kendrick in 2001, who found that sheep can remember at least 50 individual faces for more than 2 years which longer than many humans.

How soon do lambs stand up after born?
Within a few minutes, lambs can stand and walk with the flock almost immediately.

What a difference between a sheep’s eye and a human’s eye?
Sheep have rectangular pupils with excellent peripheral vision. They can visual fields of about 270 to 320 degrees whereas the human eye spans approximately 120 degrees of arc.

Can sheep self-medicate?
They are ruminants. A ruminant is a mammal that eats and digests plant-based food. The cattle, sheep, goats, buffalo, deer, giraffes, and camels are ruminants.

According to one article by Frederick D Provenza and Juan J Villalba, Ruminants do learn to consume particular feeds because they raise fitness, for example, sheep have been shown to self-medicate when they have consumed illness-inducing feeds (Villalba et al., 2006a; Howery et al., 2010).

Are sheep able to experience emotions as humans?
According to a report published in November-2009 by Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, It is concluded that sheep are able to experience emotions such as fear, anger, rage, despair, boredom, disgust, and happiness because they use the same checks involved in such emotions as humans.

Sheep farming and population

How many sheep are in the world?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, By 2019, There are 1.23 billion sheep all over the world.

How many sheep are in India?
According to the Livestock population in India, In 2019, The total number of sheep in India is around 74.3 million.

Is sheep farming profitable?
Yes, For sheep farming, we can say it is the oldest domesticated animal for agricultural purposes, sheep are bred for wool, meat, and milk.

Hello Friends, Thank you for your visit. If you like, don’t forget to share with your circles. If you have any interesting facts about sheep, you can share them with me. I will add it to the post. Make sure, whatever you will share will be unique. So it will be helpful to others.

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Camera Used: Canon EOS 1200D EF-S55-250mm lens.

Location : Bhichari Temple, Rajkot, Gujarat, India

The Below are the settings to capture this photo:

ISO:	100
Exposure Time:	1/400 sec.
Focal Length:	250 mm
F-stop (Aperture):	f/7.1
Flash Mode:	No Flash
White Balance:	Auto
EXIF Version:	02.30
Captured Date:	12th-Dec-2015