Sheep

📖 In short

Baa! Sheep are some of the most important animals people have raised for thousands of years. They give us wool, which we make into clothes and carpets, milk, which we make into cheese, and meat. Long ago, shepherds guarded their flocks from wolves in the pastures.

🤩 Did you know?

Sheep live about 7 years on average, and some live 13 years.
One sheep can give several kilograms of wool a year.
A ewe can recognize her lamb by its voice and smell among hundreds of lambs.
Sheep chew the cud, bringing food back into their mouths to chew it again.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 A woolly coat

Thick wool grows on a sheep's body all year. In spring people shear the wool, cutting it off without hurting the sheep, then clean it and spin it into yarn.

🔍 Ram, ewe and lamb

The male is called a ram, and often has big curly horns. The female is called a ewe, and the baby a lamb, which stands up and drinks milk soon after it's born.

💡 They like to stay together

Sheep like to live in a flock and follow one another. If a sheep wanders away from the flock it gets scared. A sheepdog helps round up the flock.

🎯 Many breeds

There are more than 800 breeds of sheep. Some are raised for their soft wool, like the merino, some for their meat, and some have a wide tail full of fat.