Sheep
A sheep recognises and remembers individual faces, both sheep and human, for years. Most wool breeds have to be shorn, because the fleece never stops growing.
Photo by Mozzihh, CC BY-SA 4.0
Overview
Sheep are the most copper sensitive livestock there is, and that single fact governs how you feed them. They cannot excrete excess copper through bile efficiently and they cannot store much of it safely in the liver, so it accumulates and then releases all at once, and the animal dies of a haemolytic crisis with very little warning.
In practice this means sheep get minerals and feeds formulated for sheep, full stop. Goat, cattle and horse feeds routinely carry enough copper to poison them over time, so a shared mineral lick between sheep and goats is not a shortcut, it is the mechanism.
Temperament
Flock animals with a strong following instinct, which is exactly what makes them easy to move and impossible to handle singly. A sheep separated from the flock panics, and a lone sheep is a stressed sheep.
They are quieter and less inventive than goats, and they respect fencing rather than treating it as a puzzle. Rams are a different animal and back away from nobody, which catches people out because the ewes are so undramatic.
Care and grooming
Grass and hay with a sheep specific mineral, and that is most of it. Woolled breeds are sheared annually, which is a welfare requirement rather than a harvest, since an unshorn sheep in summer overheats and attracts flies.
Flystrike is the seasonal emergency: flies lay in soiled or damaged wool and the maggots do serious damage within a day or two. Daily checks in warm weather, dagging round the back end, and preventative treatment are the standard answers. Feet need regular attention and footrot spreads through a flock quickly.
Living and exercise
About an acre carries four or five, rotated to keep the worm burden down, with shelter from wind more than from rain, since fleece handles rain and wind chill is what harms them.
Stock fencing that is tight at the bottom, and a handling pen. Everything routine with sheep, from foot trimming to worming to shearing, is straightforward if you can catch them and miserable if you cannot.
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