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Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

They may not lack intelligence but they are not fun. They are boring. They keep to themselves. They are very "sheepish". They are not emotional, except horny rams. They don't socialize with humans. They are scared of everything. They are herdish and their herd makes dumb decisions. Very few of them are outliers in behavior/intelligence. I grew up with sheep. I 'm sorry sheep, you are dumb.

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I also grew up around large flocks of sheep and found that when you isolate a young lamb and socialize it: lots of fun. Socialized lambs will recognize human friends and will respond to a given name and hang around and play. But after a year or two, after any time spent back with the flock, they forget humans and revert to being one with the herd. Older isolated sheep just get mean and end up being lawnmowers if not mutton. I figured we'd just bred the fun out of them, with a small remaining playfulness coming out while a lamb. I'd be curious to know more about wild sheep.

> being one with the herd

Well, thanks to the internet, now we have a choice of herds.

Baaaah.

There is only one herd- and it is full of gnus.

Growing up an a hobby farm with 20-40 (depending on the time of year), this is my experience too. Lambs are playful and full of spunk, but as they grow older they quickly become full-time grazing machines. Rams are just vicious.

Classic HN here that no matter how obscure the topic, we have posts from 3 different people with real world experience.

My favorite was the person who happened to be burning a boat for fuel when it was being debated whether a crew could survive a shipwreck for years by using the ship as a fuel source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10803552

I enjoyed the "did you win the Putman" episode.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

I'm not sure that sheep-farming is particularly obscure.

I imagine it is among IT people, who are the prime audience for HN.

Also, it wasn't just sheep farming. It was treating the lambs as pets.

Aggressive rams are partially a byproduct of testosterone and selective breeding, some small scale farmers will leave rams in with ewes and their newborns to protect them from predators.

I am a sheep owner. I like sheep. However, sheep are, in fact, the dumbest mammal I have ever encountered.

goats are way more entertaining. i grew up working on a farm that had about 20 head of sheep, 20 nubian goats for milk, and a handful of pygmies for meat.

Goats are fascinating. Sheep largely keep to themselves.

Second that. Goats can be pretty dog-like as far as loving human attention and playing.

I used to have 7 and just handed off my last two to another hobby farm. Even after 9 years Red my oldest doe, was friendly, curious, and very social. Sundance, her oldest wether, was playful and very dog like.

Goats make great pets.

> and a handful of pygmies for meat.

Is cannibalism legal where you are?

Pygmy is also a type of goat.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_goat

Is cannibalism legal anywhere at all? I'd be surprised if it was.

I 'm sorry sheep, you are dumb

I don't own sheep but did spend some time with them and came to the same conclusion. However I also don't think that research is incorrect. As such I am assuming the missing link is the learning part: is it possible they are capable enough but being in a herd suppresses this / has no use for it so it doesn't come out? Due to lack of stimulants, lack of apparent need to learn something?

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