SHEEP LANGUAGE

In my post "Shearing Down Country" I promised you would see the two Texel rams again.

<<< this is one of them getting his heavy fleece sheared off. He appears docile in the expert hands of the shearer. These guys earn their money, they reckon on doing an average of 40 sheep per hour ... each! Here's another average for you, each pure Welsh fleece weighs bout one kilo, whereas these Texel rams can produce a fleece of up to 6kg's. In an expert shearers hands they can, like the ewes, seem submissive and docile, but out in the field things change.

These two guys were sniffing each other as if to ensure they were the same as before and it seemed they reached an agreement that they were. But ... a Texel ram minus fleece, seems smaller and to a young Welsh ram, with all it's fleece, it seemed that he felt he could challenge these two. He was in for a bit of a shock ... 

<<< Yeowch! That was a buffetting from one of the Texel rams and he wasn't the heaviest "low slung" ram if you get my drift.

The other one also waded in to the opportunist youngster. Now these rams don't have horns like the pure Welsh, probably a good thing considering ...

that it was two against one and though they may look a similar size, it is an illusion, the Welsh ram lamb has still got it's fleece and may look a similar size, but lacks the experience of the two Texel rams. Both of them set to on this cocky youngster and the one thing my camera totally missed was one of the Texels, throwing the young inexperienced Welsh ram lamb, up in the air!

After that bit of male rambo one-one-upmanship, all three settled down to graze peacefully, side by side.

But if you think that is purely male behaviour in sheep, think again, yesterday I saw similar behaviour between recently sheared ewes, again just after shearing. Released from the shed ... at first all seemed to be peaceful and serene. Ewes finally clear of winter wool weight seemed to be enjoying a brief spell of sun, but there were arguments going on in amongst the group.

<<< Now this may seem to be a gentle moment, but ... next thing I saw was these two ewes having a real  quarrel with each other and, although I missed it on camera, things got quite nasty and they were not the only two creating a bit of an altercation. In this instance however, the young lambs stayed out of the dispute between ewes. It got quite nasty, heads threateningly lowered and there was  much female aggression between the two. They weren't the only ones either to show signs of argument. So much for sheep being "supposedly" docile creatures! There was a lot of head butting and loud vocals in the pen.

I can only wonder about the (as yet) human lack of understanding of ovine language!