Sheep
Ovis aries

Domestic sheep are hooved mammals with woolly coats. Closely related to goats, they are ruminants, or animals that chew their cud. Domestic sheep are descended from European and Asian wild mouflon. People have raised sheep for about 10,000 years. More than 200 breeds exist today.

What They Eat
Sheep are grazing herbivores, eating grasses, weeds, herbs, and shrubs. On farms, they typically also eat corn, oats, barley, and wheat. Sheep are able to survive with only minimal water supplies but must have some salt in their diets.

Where They Live
Sheep live on all continents except Antarctica, with heaviest concentrations in Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America, and the United Kingdom. Wherever they live, sheep adapt to their surroundings. Shetland sheep, for example, are a hardy breed, well suited to the rugged Shetland Islands of Northeastern Scotland.

What They Do
Sheep are social animals that live in flocks. Sheep flocks tend to move all together, either led by a dominant sheep, a herder, or herd dog. When not grazing, sheep chew their cud—the process of re-chewing food that has already been partially digested.

How They’re Doing
Domestic sheep are highly prized by people for their meat, fleece, and milk. Sheep are not in danger of extinction. However, some breeds, including Shetland sheep, are rare or endangered. The Shetland sheep flock at the Wells Fargo Family Farm reflects the Zoo’s commitment to rare and endangered animals.

Sheep

Shetland sheep love attention. They sometimes wag their tails when petted.

Ring shawls are shawls made from the finest Shetland wool—so fine that the woven shawl can pass through a ring.

Both the Shetland sheepdog and Shetland sheep originated in the same place, on the Shetland Islands off the Northeastern coast of Scotland.

What’s the difference between lamb and mutton? Only the age of the animal producing the meat. Lamb comes from younger animals, while mutton is from older sheep.

Sheep, like dogs, pant when they are hot, but goats lack that ability.

Sheep instinctively “follow the leader.” They are social animals that live in flocks. Sheep in a flock will follow the lead of a dominant animal, even if that means running off a cliff.

Helpful hints for viewing the animals

The Family Farm is open from April through November. During those months, visitors can see newborns in the lambing pen or pet and feed older lambs.

Lambs are born year round, but there are usually a few more births in springtime than in other seasons. Guest Services can tell you when large numbers of new lambs are in the Goat & Sheep Barn.

Allow plenty of travel time to get to the Goat & Sheep Barn from the Zoo entrance. Access to the Wells Fargo Family Farm is about halfway around the 1.4 mile Northern Trail Loop.

 

Sheep

A small flock of domestic sheep lives at the Goat & Sheep Barn. When the Wells Fargo Family Farm is open, visitors can pet and feed newborns and other lambs.

Meet the Animals

The Zoo’s flock consists entirely of rare Shetland sheep. These are relatively small sheep with colorful, full woolly coats. Rams (males) have spiral horns, while ewes (females) have no horns at all.

Home on the Farm

The Goat & Sheep Barn is a red-walled, green-roofed building with a fenced area for sheep to enjoy the fresh air outdoors.

Inside the barn, there is a lambing pen for ewes and a kidding pen for female goats. There is also a ram pen for male sheep and a billy pen for male goats.

Care at the Zoo

Lambs are cared for from birth. Inside the Goat & Sheep Barn, lambs are born in a lambing pen, a warm, safe place for a ewe and her babies.

Sheep usually breed from early fall to midwinter, so lambing (giving birth) most often occurs in spring. Gestation (pregnancy) lasts about 148 days, or nearly 5 months. Single and twin births are common.

Newborns are extremely strong and can stand and nurse (drink the mother’s milk) within a few minutes of birth.

Lambs are generally weaned at 2-3 months. Nearly all males and some females born at the Zoo are sold to market in the fall after weaning.

 

Sheep

What’s a Breed?
A breed is a group of animals or plants sharing common ancestors and many of the same traits. There are more than 200 different breeds of domestic sheep worldwide.

The Minnesota Zoo’s flock showcases one of the oldest domesticated breeds, Shetland sheep. The Zoo is also home to a wild wool-producing relative, the Musk Ox, which is on exhibit on the Zoo’s Northern Trail.

So Many Kinds
People have created different breeds for different purposes. They may want sheep that produce a particular kind of wool, sheep that thrive in dry climates, sheep who have a strong instinct for staying in a flock, or sheep that produce good meat.

Specific breeds are created to reinforce or enhance certain traits. Hundreds of years ago, for example, people in Italy and Spain wanted sheep that were superior wool producers. Sheep farmers selected individual animals in a flock that produced very fine wool.

They then bred those sheep with others, selecting and again breeding any offspring that retained the fine wool-producing trait. Over time, through a process called selective breeding, farmers developed a breed—Merino sheep—that produces the finest wool in the world.

This is just one example of how the more than 200 breeds of sheep living today were developed. Modern breeding has also brought about many synthetic breeds, the result of crossing two or more established breeds. All domestic sheep—whether pure breeds or synthetic breeds—contribute to the health of the species as a whole by enhancing and preserving specific traits.

Below, you’ll find more information about how another breed—the Shetland sheep in the Zoo’s herd—came to be.

Breeds at the Zoo

Shetland Sheep

The Shetland is a small but hardy breed of sheep that produces exceptionally fine and soft wool. It is smaller than any other breed from the British Isles, with ewes weighing 75-100 pounds and rams weighing 90-125 pounds.

Rams usually have spiral horns. Ewes typically are polled, or hornless.

Shetlands are extremely colorful. They exhibit a wide range of colors—the widest range of any domestic breed. Eleven distinct colors are recognized for Shetlands, from white through several shades of gray, black, brown, and fawn.

There are also 30 distinct marking patterns for the breed. These patterns were originally used by farmers to describe their sheep—and to keep flocks separate. Bladget markings, for example, occur on white Shetlands and include irregular dark patches that look like ground showing through melted snow.

Today, many farmers favor white Shetlands, since white wool harvested from the sheep generally commands higher prices. Thus, some colorings and markings are becoming rare. The colorful herd at the Minnesota Zoo demonstrates the Zoo’s commitment to helping this breed—in all its varied shades—survive.

Shetlands are believed to be one of the oldest breeds of domestic sheep. The breed originated more than 1,000 years ago on the Shetland Islands, an archipelago off the Northeastern coast of Scotland.

Shetlands are related to other Northern European short-tailed breeds, such as Finnsheep, Norwegian Spaelsau, and Icelandic sheep. It is thought that they may be descended from sheep brought to the islands by Viking invaders.

The climate of the Shetland Islands is harsh, and the rocky soil yields poor pasture. Some of that pasture includes weeds such as leafy spurge, which is poisonous to most animals.

Farmers on the Shetlands bred their sheep to survive in this challenging habitat. The breed is tough and hardy. Shetlands are even able to safely eat normally toxic leafy spurge. They also graze for woody and broadleaf plants, tall grasses, and other plants.

Shetland sheep are considered an “unimproved”  breed. In other words, Shetlands have not been selectively bred for specific desired traits. They’ve simply been bred to survive in their home habitat.

Because they were bred to survive with limited resources in a rugged island environment, Shetlands thrive when they have access to good grazing and are raised in a less harsh climate. 

Shetlands today continue to be raised on the Shetland Islands. They are also widely distributed throughout the United Kingdom and in North America. Shetlands are a rare breed but are now increasing in numbers.

 

 

Sheep

What are Sheep?
Sheep Products

What Are Sheep?

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are 4-legged, hooved mammals with mainly woolly coats. Along with goats, cows, and a number of other mammals, sheep are ruminants, or cud-chewing animals. Their 4-part stomachs allow them to survive on a varied plant diet.

Like goats, their close relatives, sheep are smaller members of the scientific family Bovidae. This family also includes much larger domestic cattle.

Sheep and goats are both members of the subfamily Caprinae. This subfamily, called caprids, also includes the wild Musk Ox and Takin, on exhibit at the Zoo’s Northern Trail.

Domestic sheep belong to the species Ovis, which also includes such wild relatives as Mouflon and Bighorn sheep.

The word sheep covers both domestic and wild sheep, but usually refers to those animals raised by people as livestock. Most domestic sheep breeds today are believed to be descended from wild Mouflon. These animals still live today in small groups in Asia, Europe, and parts of the Middle East.

Humans may have collected sheep hair before they tamed, or domesticated, sheep. Wild Mouflon, like domestic sheep, shed their coats every year. Wherever Mouflon live, clumps of hair can be found each spring. So people may first have collected hair stuck in bushes and only later decided to keep flocks of sheep.

Along with goats, sheep are among the world’s oldest domesticated animals. They have been raised by people for about 10,000 years and exist today in more than 200 species.

After domestication, most sheep developed woolly coats, making them different from their wild Mouflon ancestors.

Sheep are important to many religions and myths. In Ancient Greek mythology, for example, Jason is sent on a quest for the Golden Fleece, the pelt of a golden, flying ram.

While domestic sheep are best known for their woolly coats, or fleece, some sheep have largely hairy coats instead. Hair sheep breeds originated in sub-Saharan Africa. Their coats include a mix of both hair and wool. While sheep raised for wool need to be sheared every year, hair sheep do not.

Hair sheep breeds, such as Katahdins, tend to be more tolerant of heat than woolly breeds, such as the Zoo’s own Shetlands, who trace their ancestry back to the cold North Atlantic.

Sheep Products

People raise domestic sheep for three main products: milk, meat, and wool.

Sheep’s milk is used to produce cheese, yogurt, butter, and even ice cream. It is still used in several well-known cheeses, such as Greek Feta and Italian Ricotta and Pecorino Romano. (The Italian word pecora means sheep.)

In parts of North Africa, the Middle East, India, and Europe, sheep are an important source of meat. Meat taken from sheep less than one year old is called lamb, while that taken from older sheep is called mutton.

Sheep fleece is taken from the animal each year, generally in spring, in a process called shearing. That fleece can then be cleaned and spun into wool or pressed into felt.

Different grades, or qualities, of sheep’s wool exist. The very soft and fine fleece of Shetland sheep, for example, is prized by hand-spinners. Coarser grades may be used in upholstery, for making carpets, or to fill mattresses. Sheep’s wool is a versatile product that has even been used to soak up oil spills.

Sheep contribute to even more products, including the following: lanolin, a key ingredient in lubricants and lotions; leather and chamois cloths used to polish cars; and lambskin clothing.