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153-530: The Dorset Down is a breed of sheep native to the Dorset Downs region of England . It originated in the early 19th century from crosses of local and Hampshire ewes with Southdown rams. The breed is not closely related to the Dorset (a.k.a. Dorset Horned), which is a white-faced sheep. Dorset Downs are medium-sized, robust sheep with dark faces and short wool. Prior to the importation of Continental breeds like

306-647: A diurnal pattern of activity, feeding from dawn to dusk, stopping sporadically to rest and chew their cud . Ideal pasture for sheep is not lawnlike grass, but an array of grasses , legumes and forbs . Types of land where sheep are raised vary widely, from pastures that are seeded and improved intentionally to rough, native lands. Common plants toxic to sheep are present in most of the world, and include (but are not limited to) cherry, some oaks and acorns, tomato, yew , rhubarb, potato, and rhododendron . Sheep are largely grazing herbivores, unlike browsing animals such as goats and deer that prefer taller foliage. With

459-418: A domesticated , ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock . Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis , in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla , the even-toed ungulates . Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female

612-670: A gestation period of about five months, and normal labor takes one to three hours. Although some breeds regularly throw larger litters of lambs, most produce single or twin lambs. During or soon after labor, ewes and lambs may be confined to small lambing jugs , small pens designed to aid both careful observation of ewes and to cement the bond between them and their lambs. Ovine obstetrics can be problematic. By selectively breeding ewes that produce multiple offspring with higher birth weights for generations, sheep producers have inadvertently caused some domestic sheep to have difficulty lambing; balancing ease of lambing with high productivity

765-409: A terraformed planet or moon. Unlike most genres of science fiction, pastoral science fiction works downplay the role of futuristic technologies. In the 1950s and 1960s, Clifford Simak wrote stories about rural people who have contact with extraterrestrial beings who hide their alien identity. Pastoral science fiction stories typically show a reverence for the land, its life-giving food harvests,

918-472: A ewe and her direct descendants often move as a unit within large flocks. Sheep can become hefted to one particular local pasture (heft) so they do not roam freely in unfenced landscapes. Lambs learn the heft from ewes and if whole flocks are culled it must be retaught to the replacement animals. Flock behaviour in sheep is generally only exhibited in groups of four or more sheep; fewer sheep may not react as expected when alone or with few other sheep. Being

1071-668: A feature of grand opera , most particularly in Meyerbeer's operas: often composers would develop a pastoral-themed "oasis", usually in the centre of their work. Notable examples include the shepherd's "alte Weise" from Wagner 's Tristan und Isolde , or the pastoral ballet occupying the middle of Tchaikovsky 's The Queen of Spades . The 20th-century continued to bring new pastoral interpretations, particularly in ballet, such as Ravel's Daphis and Chloe , Nijinsky's use of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune , and Stravinsky 's Le sacre du printemps and Les Noces . The Pastorale

1224-407: A few breeds that are predominantly used for milking. These sheep produce a higher quantity of milk and have slightly longer lactation curves. In the quality of their milk, the fat and protein content percentages of dairy sheep vary from non-dairy breeds, but lactose content does not. A last group of sheep breeds is that of fur or hair sheep , which do not grow wool at all. Hair sheep are similar to

1377-468: A flock as it is herded between living sites. It has been reported that some sheep have apparently shown problem-solving abilities; a flock in West Yorkshire , England , allegedly found a way to get over cattle grids by rolling on their backs, although documentation of this has relied on anecdotal accounts. Sounds made by domestic sheep include bleats, grunts, rumbles and snorts. Bleating ("baaing")

1530-753: A group of three books of the canonical New Testament : the First Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy) the Second Epistle to Timothy (2 Timothy), and the Epistle to Titus . They are presented as letters from Paul the Apostle to Timothy and to Titus . They are generally discussed as a group (sometimes with the addition of the Epistle to Philemon ) and are given the title "pastoral" because they are addressed to individuals with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership . In

1683-540: A guise for political discourse, which other forms had previously neglected. The Pastoral, he writes, has a didactic duty to “contain and enforme morall discipline for the amendment of mans behaviour”. Friedrich Schiller linked the Pastoral to childhood and a childlike simplicity. For Schiller, we perceive in nature an “image of our infancy irrevocably past”. Sir William Empson spoke of the ideal of Pastoral as being embedded in varying degrees of ambivalence, and yet, for all

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1836-479: A highly bred herding ability. Sheep are food-oriented, and association of humans with regular feeding often results in sheep soliciting people for food. Those who are moving sheep may exploit this behavior by leading sheep with buckets of feed. Sheep establish a dominance hierarchy through fighting, threats and competitiveness. Dominant animals are inclined to be more aggressive with other sheep, and usually feed first at troughs . Primarily among rams, horn size

1989-563: A life of melancholy and solitude. Milton's, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629) blends Christian and pastoral imagery. Milton is perhaps best known for his epic Paradise Lost , one of the few Pastoral epics ever written. A notable part of Paradise Lost is book IV where he chronicles Satan's trespass into paradise. Milton's iconic descriptions of the garden are shadowed by the fact that we see it from Satan's perspective and are thus led to commiserate with him. Milton elegantly works through

2142-413: A mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy). Terry Gifford, a prominent literary theorist, defines pastoral in three ways in his critical book Pastoral . The first way emphasizes the historical literary perspective of the pastoral in which authors recognize and discuss life in the country and in particular the life of a shepherd. This

2295-447: A month. Two fundamental preventive programs are maintaining good nutrition and reducing stress in the sheep. Restraint, isolation, loud noises, novel situations, pain, heat, extreme cold, fatigue and other stressors can lead to secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone, in amounts that may indicate welfare problems. Excessive stress can compromise the immune system. "Shipping fever" (pneumonic mannheimiosis, formerly called pasteurellosis)

2448-446: A much narrower face, sheep crop plants very close to the ground and can overgraze a pasture much faster than cattle. For this reason, many shepherds use managed intensive rotational grazing , where a flock is rotated through multiple pastures, giving plants time to recover. Paradoxically, sheep can both cause and solve the spread of invasive plant species . By disturbing the natural state of pasture, sheep and other livestock can pave

2601-434: A new pasture to avoid ingesting the same parasites. External sheep parasites include: lice (for different parts of the body), sheep keds , nose bots , sheep itch mites , and maggots . Keds are blood-sucking parasites that cause general malnutrition and decreased productivity, but are not fatal. Maggots are those of the bot fly and the blow-fly , commonly Lucilia sericata or its relative L. cuprina . Fly maggots cause

2754-488: A pastoral view demonstrates how prestigious Penshurst was, to be worthy in the company with gods. "A Country Life", another 17th-century work by Katherine Philips , was also a country house poem. Philips focuses on the joys of the countryside and looks upon the lifestyle that accompanies it as being "the first and happiest life, when man enjoyed himself." She writes about maintaining this lifestyle by living detached from material things, and by not over-concerning herself with

2907-467: A presentation of Adam and Eve ’s pastorally idyllic, eternally fertile living conditions and focuses upon their stewardship of the garden. He gives much focus to the fruit bearing trees and Adam and Eve's care of them, sculpting an image of pastoral harmony. However, Milton in turn continually comes back to Satan , constructing him as a character the audience can easily identify with and perhaps even like. Milton creates Satan as character meant to destabilize

3060-428: A prey species, a sheep's system is adapted to hide the obvious signs of illness, to prevent being targeted by predators. However, some signs of ill health are obvious, with sick sheep eating little, vocalizing excessively, and being generally listless. Throughout history, much of the money and labor of sheep husbandry has aimed to prevent sheep ailments. Historically, shepherds often created remedies by experimentation on

3213-600: A prey species, the primary defense mechanism of sheep is to flee from danger when their flight zone is entered. Cornered sheep may charge and butt, or threaten by hoof stamping and adopting an aggressive posture. This is particularly true for ewes with newborn lambs. In regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior. Farmers exploit flocking behavior to keep sheep together on unfenced pastures such as hill farming , and to move them more easily. For this purpose shepherds may use herding dogs in this effort, with

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3366-415: A result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all (i.e. polled ), or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several. Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines

3519-476: A scent and indicate readiness through physical displays towards rams. In feral sheep, rams may fight during the rut to determine which individuals may mate with ewes. Rams, especially unfamiliar ones, will also fight outside the breeding period to establish dominance; rams can kill one another if allowed to mix freely. During the rut, even usually friendly rams may become aggressive towards humans due to increases in their hormone levels. After mating, sheep have

3672-482: A sense of nostalgia for their country way of living. His next argument focuses on the artificiality of poetry, drawing upon fellow theorist, Puttenham. Kermode elaborates on this and says, "the cultivated, in their artificial way, reflect upon and describe, for their own ends, the natural life". Kermode wants us to understand that the recreation or reproduction of the natural is in itself artificial. Kermode elaborates on this in terms of imitation, describing it as "one of

3825-505: A slight risk to humans. During the 2001 FMD pandemic in the UK, hundreds of sheep were culled and some rare British breeds were at risk of extinction due to this. Of the 600,300 sheep lost to the US economy in 2004, 37.3% were lost to predators, while 26.5% were lost to some form of disease. Poisoning accounted for 1.7% of non-productive deaths. Pastoral The genre is also known as bucolic , from

3978-497: A slow rate of growth. Long wool sheep are most valued for crossbreeding to improve the attributes of other sheep types. For example: the American Columbia breed was developed by crossing Lincoln rams (a long wool breed) with fine-wooled Rambouillet ewes. Coarse or carpet wool sheep are those with a medium to long length wool of characteristic coarseness. Breeds traditionally used for carpet wool show great variability, but

4131-709: A specifically ‘Irish pastoral'". In 2014, The Cambridge Companion to the City in Literature had a chapter on the urban pastoral subgenre. Charles Siebert's Wickerby: An Urban Pastoral describes a man who splits his time between a gritty Brooklyn apartment, where the night is filled with the sounds of pigeons, starlings, and youth gangs shouting, and driving to rural Quebec to squat in an abandoned, tumbledown cabin in rural Quebec. Theocritus's Idylls include strophic songs and musical laments, and, as in Homer , his shepherds often play

4284-815: A study published in Nature in 2001, Kenneth M. Kendrick and others reported; "Sheep recognize and are attracted to individual sheep and humans by their faces, as they possess similar specialized neural systems in the temporal and frontal lobes  ... individual sheep can remember 50 other different sheep faces for over 2 years". In addition to long-term facial recognition of individuals, sheep can also differentiate emotional states through facial characteristics. If worked with patiently, sheep may learn their names, and many sheep are trained to be led by halter for showing and other purposes. Sheep have also responded well to clicker training . Sheep have been used as pack animals; Tibetan nomads distribute baggage equally throughout

4437-422: A tendency to congregate close to other members of a flock, although this behavior varies with breed, and sheep can become stressed when separated from their flock members. During flocking, sheep have a strong tendency to follow, and a leader may simply be the first individual to move. Relationships in flocks tend to be closest among related sheep: in mixed-breed flocks, subgroups of the same breed tend to form, and

4590-411: A tool for writers to discuss a controversial topic without repercussions. Raymond Williams argues that the foundation of the pastoral lies in the idea that the city is a highly urban, industrialized center that has removed us from the peaceful life we once had in the countryside. However, he states that this is really a "myth functioning as a memory" that literature has created in its representations of

4743-407: A waste product or a scent marker to help lost sheep find their flock, have also been proposed. Sheep and goats are closely related: both are in the subfamily Caprinae . However, they are separate species, so hybrids rarely occur and are always infertile. A hybrid of a ewe and a buck (a male goat) is called a sheep-goat hybrid , known as geep . Visual differences between sheep and goats include

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4896-415: A well-focused retinal image of objects in both the middle and long distance. Because sheep eyes have no accommodation , one might expect the image of very near objects to be blurred, but a rather clear near image could be provided by the tapetum and large retinal image of the sheep's eye, and adequate close vision may occur at muzzle length. Good depth perception, inferred from the sheep's sure-footedness,

5049-496: Is hay , often during the winter months. The ability to thrive solely on pasture (even without hay) varies with breed, but all sheep can survive on this diet. Also included in some sheep's diets are minerals , either in a trace mix or in licks . Feed provided to sheep must be specially formulated, as most cattle, poultry, pig, and even some goat feeds contain levels of copper that are lethal to sheep. The same danger applies to mineral supplements such as salt licks . Sheep follow

5202-478: Is "Colin Clout"). Spenser's example was imitated by such poets as Michael Drayton ( Idea, The Shepherd's Garland ) and William Browne ( Britannia's Pastorals ). During this period of England's history, many authors explored "anti-pastoral" themes. Two examples of this, Sir Philip Sidney 's "The Twenty-Third Psalm" and "The Nightingale", focus on the world in a very anti-pastoral view. In “The Twenty-Third Psalm,” Nature

5355-409: Is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for handspinning . The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There

5508-564: Is a direct descendant of this population. Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind (although the domestication of dogs probably took place 10 to 20 thousand years earlier); the domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9000 BC in Mesopotamia and possibly around 7000 BC in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley. The rearing of sheep for secondary products, and

5661-539: Is a disease of particular concern, that can occur as a result of stress, notably during transport and (or) handling. Pain, fear and several other stressors can cause secretion of epinephrine (adrenaline). Considerable epinephrine secretion in the final days before slaughter can adversely affect meat quality (by causing glycogenolysis, removing the substrate for normal post-slaughter acidification of meat) and result in meat becoming more susceptible to colonization by spoilage bacteria. Because of such issues, low-stress handling

5814-485: Is a factor in the flock hierarchy. Rams with different size horns may be less inclined to fight to establish the dominance order, while rams with similarly sized horns are more so. Merinos have an almost linear hierarchy whereas there is a less rigid structure in Border Leicesters when a competitive feeding situation arises. In sheep, position in a moving flock is highly correlated with social dominance, but there

5967-431: Is a form of Italian folk song still played in the regions of Southern Italy where the zampogna continues to thrive. They generally sound like a slowed down version of a tarantella , as they encompass many of the same melodic phrases. The pastorale on the zampogna can be played by a solo zampogna player, or in some regions can be accompanied by the piffero (also commonly called a ciaramella , 'pipita', or bifora ), which

6120-499: Is a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease affecting sheep and goats. Sheep may also be affected by primary or secondary photosensitization. Tetanus can also afflict sheep through wounds from shearing , docking , castration , or vaccination. The organism also can be introduced into the reproductive tract by unsanitary humans who assist ewes during lambing. A few sheep conditions are transmissible to humans. Orf (also known as scabby mouth, contagious ecthyma or soremouth)

6273-561: Is a primitive key-less double reed oboe type instrument. Idealised pastoral landscapes appear in Hellenistic and Roman wall paintings. Interest in the pastoral as a subject for art revived in Renaissance Italy, partly inspired by the descriptions of pictures Jacopo Sannazaro included in his Arcadia . The Pastoral Concert in the Louvre attributed to Giorgione or Titian is perhaps

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6426-476: Is a skin disease leaving lesions that is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. Cutaneous anthrax is also called woolsorter's disease, as the spores can be transmitted in unwashed wool. More seriously, the organisms that can cause spontaneous enzootic abortion in sheep are easily transmitted to pregnant women. Also of concern are the prion disease scrapie and the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as both can devastate flocks. The latter poses

6579-677: Is commonly given at an age of about 10 to 12 weeks; i.e. when the concentration of maternal antibodies passively acquired via colostrum is expected to have fallen low enough to permit development of active immunity. Ewes are often revaccinated annually about 3 weeks before lambing, to provide high antibody concentrations in colostrum during the first several hours after lambing. Ram lambs that will either be slaughtered or separated from ewes before sexual maturity are not usually castrated. Objections to all these procedures have been raised by animal rights groups, but farmers defend them by saying they save money, and inflict only temporary pain. Sheep are

6732-535: Is entirely homosexual . Pastoral literature continued after Hesiod with the poetry of the Hellenistic Greek Theocritus , several of whose Idylls are set in the countryside (probably reflecting the landscape of the island of Cos where the poet lived) and involve dialogues between herdsmen. Theocritus may have drawn on authentic folk traditions of Sicilian shepherds. He wrote in the Doric dialect but

6885-414: Is essential in sheep management. Avoiding poisoning is also important; common poisons are pesticide sprays, inorganic fertilizer , motor oil , as well as radiator coolant containing ethylene glycol. Common forms of preventive medication for sheep are vaccinations and treatments for parasites . Both external and internal parasites are the most prevalent malady in sheep, and are either fatal, or reduce

7038-501: Is left in the background, leaving the shepherdesses and their swains in a state of almost perfect leisure . This makes them available for embodying perpetual erotic fantasies. The shepherds spend their time chasing pretty girls – or, at least in the Greek and Roman versions, pretty boys as well. The eroticism of Virgil 's second eclogue , Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin ("The shepherd Corydon burned with passion for pretty Alexis"),

7191-438: Is no definitive study to show consistent voluntary leadership by an individual sheep. Sheep are frequently thought of as unintelligent animals . Their flocking behavior and quickness to flee and panic can make shepherding a difficult endeavor for the uninitiated. Despite these perceptions, a University of Illinois monograph on sheep reported their intelligence to be just below that of pigs and on par with that of cattle. In

7344-405: Is of six 'books' only, though Spenser intended to write twelve. He wrote the poem primarily to honor Queen Elizabeth . William Cowper addressed the artificiality of the fast-paced city life in his poems Retirement (1782) and The Winter Nosegay (1782). Pastoral nevertheless survived as a mood rather than a genre, as can be seen from such works as Matthew Arnold 's Thyrsis (1867), a lament on

7497-453: Is often contrasted with the negative aspects of noisy, dirty, fast-paced cities. Some works take a Luddite tone, criticizing mechanization and industrialization and showing the ills of urbanization and over-reliance on advanced technologies. In 1994, British literature professor Terry Gifford proposed the concept of a "post-pastoral" subgenre. By appending the prefix "post-", Gifford does not intend this to refer to “after” but rather to

7650-477: Is one of the dilemmas of sheep breeding. In the case of any such problems, those present at lambing may assist the ewe by extracting or repositioning lambs. After the birth, ewes ideally break the amniotic sac (if it is not broken during labor), and begin licking clean the lamb. Most lambs will begin standing within an hour of birth. In normal situations, lambs nurse after standing, receiving vital colostrum milk. Lambs that either fail to nurse or are rejected by

7803-524: Is portrayed as something we need to be protected from, and in “The Nightingale,” the woe of Philomela is compared to the speaker's own pain. Sidney also wrote Arcadia , which is filled with pastoral descriptions of the landscape. " The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd " (1600) by Sir Walter Raleigh also comments on the anti-pastoral as the nymph responds realistically to the idealizing shepherd of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by embracing and explaining

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7956-457: Is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia , New Zealand , the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production. There is a large lexicon of unique terms for sheep husbandry which vary considerably by region and dialect . Use of

8109-483: Is referred to as a ewe ( / j uː / yoo ), an intact male as a ram , occasionally a tup , a castrated male as a wether , and a young sheep as a lamb . Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia, with Iran being a geographic envelope of the domestication center. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces , meat ( lamb, hogget or mutton ), and milk . A sheep's wool

8262-432: Is summed up by Leo Marx with the phrase "No shepherd, no pastoral." The second type of the pastoral is literature that "describes the country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban". The third type of pastoral depicts the country life with derogative classifications. Hesiod 's Works and Days presents a 'golden age' when people lived together in harmony with nature. This Golden Age shows that even before

8415-527: Is the Edenic Pastoral, which alludes to the perfect relationship between God, man, and nature in the Garden of Eden . It typically includes biblical symbols and imagery. In 1645 John Milton wrote L'Allegro , which translates as the happy person. It is a celebration of Mirth personified, who is the child of love and revelry. It was originally composed to be a companion poem to, Il Penseroso , which celebrates

8568-516: Is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing . In Commonwealth countries, ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones; in the United States, meat from both older and younger animals is usually called lamb. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts , as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science. Sheep husbandry

8721-458: Is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, and even spotted or piebald . Sheep keepers also sometimes artificially paint "smit marks" onto their sheep in any pattern or color for identification. Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, and as white wool

8874-433: Is then passed into the rumen , via the reticulum . The rumen is a 19- to 38-liter (5 to 10 gallon) organ in which feed is fermented . The fermenting organisms include bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. (Other important rumen organisms include some archaea, which produce methane from carbon dioxide. ) The bolus is periodically regurgitated back to the mouth as cud for additional chewing and salivation . After fermentation in

9027-692: Is used mostly for contact communication, especially between dam and lambs, but also at times between other flock members. The bleats of individual sheep are distinctive, enabling the ewe and her lambs to recognize each other's vocalizations. Vocal communication between lambs and their dam declines to a very low level within several weeks after parturition. A variety of bleats may be heard, depending on sheep age and circumstances. Apart from contact communication, bleating may signal distress, frustration or impatience; however, sheep are usually silent when in pain. Isolation commonly prompts bleating by sheep. Pregnant ewes may grunt when in labor. Rumbling sounds are made by

9180-489: Is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre. Depending on breed, sheep show a range of heights and weights. Their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait that is often selected for in breeding. Ewes typically weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms (100 and 220 lb), and rams between 45 and 160 kilograms (100 and 350 lb). When all deciduous teeth have erupted,

9333-433: Is widespread, and is the main impediment to certified organic farming with sheep. Many breeders take a variety of preventive measures to ward off problems. The first is to ensure all sheep are healthy when purchased. Many buyers avoid outlets known to be clearing houses for animals culled from healthy flocks as either sick or simply inferior. This can also mean maintaining a closed flock, and quarantining new sheep for

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9486-572: The Eclogues (c. 1515) of Alexander Barclay , which were heavily influenced by Mantuan. A landmark in English pastoral poetry was Spenser ’s The Shepheardes Calender , first published in 1579. Spenser's work consists of twelve eclogues, one for each month of the year, and is written in dialect. It contains elegies , fables and a discussion of the role of poetry in contemporary England. Spenser and his friends appear under various pseudonyms (Spenser himself

9639-499: The Alexandrian age , ancient Greeks had sentiments of an ideal pastoral life that they had already lost. This is the first example of literature that has pastoral sentiments and may have begun the pastoral tradition. Ovid's Metamorphoses is much like the Works and Days with the description of ages (golden, silver, bronze, iron, and human) but with more ages to discuss and less emphasis on

9792-408: The Garden of Eden . An example of the use of the genre is the short poem by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson Robene and Makyne which also contains the conflicted emotions often present in the genre. A more tranquil mood is set by Christopher Marlowe 's well known lines from his 1588 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love : Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all

9945-615: The Golden Fleece —and major religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals . The exact line of descent from wild ancestors to domestic sheep is unclear. The most common hypothesis states that Ovis aries is descended from the Asiatic ( O. gmelini ) species of mouflon ; the European mouflon ( Ovis aries musimon )

10098-477: The Greek βουκολικόν , from βουκόλος , meaning a cowherd . Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as

10251-587: The Hebrew word רעה ( roʿeh ), which is used as a noun as in "shepherd", and as a verb as in "to tend a flock." It occurs 173 times in 144 Old Testament verses and relates to the literal feeding of sheep, as in Genesis 29:7. In Jeremiah 23:4, both meanings are used ( ro'im is used for "shepherds" and yir'um for "shall feed them"), "And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith

10404-591: The Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals. Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, and were an important agent in

10557-773: The Texel , the Dorset Down was a popular terminal sire breed in the United Kingdom. Today it is listed as a minority breed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust . It was also exported to North and South America, New Zealand and Australia, but remains fairly rare in those countries as well. This sheep -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sheep Ovis guineensis Linnaeus, 1758 Ovis strepsiceros Linnaeus, 1758 Sheep ( pl. : sheep) or domestic sheep ( Ovis aries ) are

10710-505: The dental formula for sheep is either 0.0.3.3 4.0.3.3 or 0.0.3.3 3.1.3.3 There is a large diastema between the incisors and the molars . In the first few years of life one can calculate the age of sheep from their front teeth, as a pair of milk teeth is replaced by larger adult teeth each year, the full set of eight adult front teeth being complete at about four years of age. The front teeth are then gradually lost as sheep age, making it harder for them to feed and hindering

10863-454: The rut , whereas rams do not. The domestic sheep is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 200 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes. Some sources give a count of a thousand or more breeds, but these numbers cannot be verified, according to some sources. However, several hundred breeds of sheep have been identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of

11016-460: The syrinx , or pan flute, which is considered a quintessentially pastoral instrument. Virgil's Eclogues were performed as sung mime in the 1st century, and there is evidence of the pastoral song as a legitimate genre of classical times. The pastoral genre was a significant influence in the development of opera . After settings of pastoral poetry in the pastourelle genre by the troubadours , Italian poets and composers became increasingly drawn to

11169-608: The topography for which the breed has been developed. This last point is especially stressed in the UK, where breeds are described as either upland (hill or mountain) or lowland breeds. A sheep may also be of a fat-tailed type , which is a dual-purpose sheep common in Africa and Asia with larger deposits of fat within and around its tail. Breeds are often categorized by the type of their wool. Fine wool breeds are those that have wool of great crimp and density, which are preferred for textiles. Most of these were derived from Merino sheep, and

11322-456: The "post-pastoral" concept, as well as two other variants: "gay pastoral", the seemingly contradictory "urban pastoral" and "radical pastoral". Gifford lists further examples of pastoral variants, which he calls "prefix-pastoral[s]": " postmodern pastoral,...hard pastoral, soft pastoral, Buell’s revolutionary lesbian feminist pastoral, black pastoral, ghetto pastoral, frontier pastoral, militarized pastoral, domestic pastoral and, most recently,

11475-560: The 14th century onwards, first in Latin (examples include works by Petrarch , Pontano and Mantuan ) then in the Italian vernacular ( Sannazaro , Boiardo ). The fashion for pastoral spread throughout Renaissance Europe. Leading French pastoral poets include Marot , a poet of the French court, and Pierre de Ronsard , once called the "prince of poets" in his day. The first pastorals in English were

11628-498: The 17th century came the Country house poem . Included in this genre is Emilia Lanier 's The Description of Cooke-ham in 1611, in which a woman is described in terms of her relationship to her estate and how it mourns for her when she leaves it. In 1616, Ben Jonson wrote To Penshurst, a poem in which he addresses the estate owned by the Sidney family and tells of its beauty. The basis of

11781-423: The 20th and 21st centuries, a minority of sheep owners have turned to alternative treatments such as homeopathy , herbalism and even traditional Chinese medicine to treat sheep veterinary problems. Despite some favorable anecdotal evidence , the effectiveness of alternative veterinary medicine has been met with skepticism in scientific journals . The need for traditional anti-parasite drugs and antibiotics

11934-420: The City . This acknowledgment of Herrick's work is appropriate, as both Williams and Herrick accentuate the importance of labor in the pastoral lifestyle. The pastoral elegy is a subgenre that uses pastoral elements to lament a death or loss. The most famous pastoral elegy in English is John Milton 's " Lycidas " (1637), written on the death of Edward King, a fellow student at Cambridge University. Milton used

12087-913: The Jacobson's organ) to sense the pheromones of ewes and detect when they are in estrus . The ewe uses her vomeronasal organ for early recognition of her neonate lamb. Sheep follow a similar reproductive strategy to other herd animals. A group of ewes is generally mated by a single ram, who has either been chosen by a breeder or (in feral populations) has established dominance through physical contest with other rams. Most sheep are seasonal breeders , although some are able to breed year-round. Ewes generally reach sexual maturity at six to eight months old, and rams generally at four to six months. However, there are exceptions. For example, Finnsheep ewe lambs may reach puberty as early as 3 to 4 months, and Merino ewes sometimes reach puberty at 18 to 20 months. Ewes have estrus cycles about every 17 days, during which they emit

12240-556: The Jewish world at the time of the origins of Christianity in the first century CE. A pastoral letter , often called simply a pastoral, is an open letter addressed by a bishop to the clergy or laity of a diocese or to both, containing general admonition, instruction or consolation, or directions for behavior in particular circumstances. In most episcopal church bodies, clerics are often required to read out pastoral letters of superior bishops to their congregations. The pastoral epistles are

12393-583: The LORD." ( KJV ). A pastoral economic system had great cultural significance for the Jewish people from earliest recorded times: Abraham herded flocks. Throughout the biblical accounts of the Children of Israel , a pastoral lifestyle in the harsh hinterland of the Levant related to the ideal of a society obedient to Yahweh , in contrast to the corruption and idolatry encountered in the "fleshpots of Egypt" (Exodus 16:3), in

12546-591: The UN (FAO), with the estimated number varying somewhat from time to time: e.g. 863 breeds as of 1993, 1314 breeds as of 1995 and 1229 breeds as of 2006. (These numbers exclude extinct breeds, which are also tallied by the FAO.) For the purpose of such tallies, the FAO definition of a breed is "either a subspecific group of domestic livestock with definable and identifiable external characteristics that enable it to be separated by visual appraisal from other similarly defined groups within

12699-428: The adjective 'pastoral' refers to rural subjects and aspects of life in the countryside among shepherds , cowherds and other farm workers that are often romanticized and depicted in a highly unrealistic manner. The pastoral life is usually characterized as being closer to the golden age than the rest of human life. The setting is a locus amoenus , or a beautiful place in nature, sometimes connected with images of

12852-405: The apparent dichotomies, and contradicting elements found within it, he felt there was a unified harmony within it. He refers to the pastoral process as 'putting the complex into the simple.' Empson argues that "... good proletarian art is usually Covert Pastoral", and uses Soviet Russia's propaganda about the working class as evidence. Empson also emphasizes the importance of the double plot as

13005-451: The audience’s understanding of themselves and the world around them. Through this mode, Milton is able to create a working dialogue between the text and his audience about the ‘truths’ they hold for themselves. Italian writers invented a new genre, the pastoral romance, which mixed pastoral poems with a fictional narrative in prose. Although there was no classical precedent for the form, it drew some inspiration from ancient Greek novels set in

13158-449: The basis of these tendencies. The dominance hierarchy of sheep and their natural inclination to follow a leader to new pastures were the pivotal factors in sheep being one of the first domesticated livestock species. Furthermore, in contrast to the red deer and gazelle (two other ungulates of primary importance to meat production in prehistoric times), sheep do not defend territories although they do form home ranges . All sheep have

13311-418: The beard of goats and divided upper lip of sheep. Sheep tails also hang down, even when short or docked , while the short tails of goats are held upwards. Also, sheep breeds are often naturally polled (either in both sexes or just in the female), while naturally polled goats are rare (though many are polled artificially). Males of the two species differ in that buck goats acquire a unique and strong odor during

13464-454: The breed continues to dominate the world sheep industry. Downs breeds have wool between the extremes, and are typically fast-growing meat and ram breeds with dark faces. Some major medium wool breeds, such as the Corriedale , are dual-purpose crosses of long and fine-wooled breeds and were created for high-production commercial flocks. Long wool breeds are the largest of sheep, with long wool and

13617-499: The chief requirement is a wool that will not break down under heavy use (as would that of the finer breeds). As the demand for carpet-quality wool declines, some breeders of this type of sheep are attempting to use a few of these traditional breeds for alternative purposes. Others have always been primarily meat-class sheep. A minor class of sheep are the dairy breeds. Dual-purpose breeds that may primarily be meat or wool sheep are often used secondarily as milking animals, but there are

13770-616: The contrast between urban and rural lifestyles and political allegory most notably in Eclogues 1 and 4 respectively. In doing so, Virgil presents a more idealized portrayal of the lives of shepherds while still employing the traditional pastoral conventions of Theocritus. He was the first to set his poems in Arcadia, an idealized location to which much later pastoral literature will refer. Horace 's Epodes , ii Country Joys has "the dreaming man" Alfius, who dreams of escaping his busy urban life for

13923-736: The countryside, such as Daphnis and Chloe . The most influential Italian example of the form was Sannazzaro 's Arcadia (1504). The vogue for the pastoral romance spread throughout Europe producing such notable works as Bernardim Ribeiro "Menina e Moça" (1554) in Portuguese, Montemayor 's Diana (1559) in Spain, Sir Philip Sidney 's Arcadia (1590) in England, and Honoré d'Urfé 's Astrée (1607–27) in France. Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age Pastoral drama also emerged in Renaissance Italy. Again, there

14076-419: The cycle of the seasons, and the role of the community. While fertile agrarian environments on Earth or Earth-like planets are common settings, some works may be set in ocean or desert planets or habitable moons. The rural dwellers, such as farmers and small-townspeople, are depicted sympathetically, albeit with the tendency to portray them as conservative and suspicious of change. The simple, peaceful rural life

14229-457: The death of his fellow poet Arthur Hugh Clough . Robert Burns can be read as a Pastoral poet for his nostalgic portrayals of rural Scotland and simple farm life in To A Mouse and The Cotter's Saturday Night . Burns explicitly addresses the Pastoral form in his Poem on Pastoral Poetry . In this he champions his fellow Scot Allan Ramsey as the best Pastoral poet since Theocritus . Another subgenre

14382-399: The decline of localized family farms , many breeds of sheep are in danger of extinction. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the UK lists 22 native breeds as having only 3,000 registered animals (each), and The Livestock Conservancy lists 14 as either "critical" or "threatened". Preferences for breeds with uniform characteristics and fast growth have pushed heritage (or heirloom) breeds to

14535-472: The early domesticated sheep kept before woolly breeds were developed, and are raised for meat and pelts. Some modern breeds of hair sheep, such as the Dorper , result from crosses between wool and hair breeds. For meat and hide producers, hair sheep are cheaper to keep, as they do not need shearing. Hair sheep are also more resistant to parasites and hot weather. With the modern rise of corporate agribusiness and

14688-728: The ewe require help to survive, such as bottle-feeding or fostering by another ewe. Most lambs begin life being born outdoors. After lambs are several weeks old, lamb marking ( ear tagging , docking , mulesing , and castrating ) is carried out. Vaccinations are usually carried out at this point as well. Ear tags with numbers are attached, or ear marks are applied, for ease of later identification of sheep. Docking and castration are commonly done after 24 hours (to avoid interference with maternal bonding and consumption of colostrum) and are often done not later than one week after birth, to minimize pain, stress, recovery time and complications. The first course of vaccinations (commonly anti-clostridial)

14841-403: The extremely destructive condition of flystrike . Flies lay their eggs in wounds or wet, manure-soiled wool; when the maggots hatch they burrow into a sheep's flesh, eventually causing death if untreated. In addition to other treatments, crutching (shearing wool from a sheep's rump) is a common preventive method. Some countries allow mulesing , a practice that involves stripping away the skin on

14994-418: The face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face. Sheep have poor depth perception ; shadows and dips in

15147-409: The famous pastoral epic The Faerie Queene , in which he employs the pastoral mode to accentuate the charm, lushness, and splendor of the poem's (super)natural world. Spenser alludes to the pastoral continuously throughout the work and also uses it to create allegory in his poem, with the characters as well as with the environment, both of which are meant to have symbolic meaning in the real world. It

15300-502: The farm. In some developed countries, including the United States, sheep lack the economic importance for drug companies to perform expensive clinical trials required to approve more than a relatively limited number of drugs for ovine use. However, extra-label drug use in sheep production is permitted in many jurisdictions, subject to certain restrictions. In the US, for example, regulations governing extra-label drug use in animals are found in 21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 530. In

15453-615: The form both to explore his vocation as a writer and to attack what he saw as the abuses of the Church. Also included is Thomas Gray 's, "Elegy In a Country Churchyard" (1750). The formal English pastoral continued to flourish during the 18th century, eventually dying out at the end. One notable example of an 18th-century work is Alexander Pope 's Pastorals (1709). In this work Pope imitates Edmund Spenser 's Shepheardes Calendar , while utilizing classical names and allusions aligning him with Virgil . In 1717, Pope's Discourse on Pastoral Poetry

15606-426: The fundamental laws of literary history" because it "gives literary history a meaning in terms of itself, and provides the channels of literary tradition". Kermode goes on to explain about the works of Virgil and Theocritus as progenitors of the pastoral. Later poets would draw on these earlier forms of pastoral, elaborating on them to fit their own social context. As the pastoral was becoming more modern, it shifted into

15759-475: The gods and their punishments. In this artificially constructed world, nature acts as the main punisher. Another example of this perfect relationship between man and nature is evident in the encounter of a shepherd and a goatherd who meet in the pastures in Theocritus ' poem Idylls 1 . Traditionally, pastoral refers to the lives of herdsmen in a romanticized, exaggerated, but representative way. In literature ,

15912-529: The ground may cause sheep to baulk. In general, sheep have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well-lit areas, and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Sheep also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain, but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors. The foot glands might also be related to reproduction, but alternative functions, such as secretion of

16065-537: The health and productivity of the animal. For this reason, domestic sheep on normal pasture begin to slowly decline from four years on, and the life expectancy of a sheep is 10 to 12 years, though some sheep may live as long as 20 years. Sheep have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled. Sheep have horizontal slit-shaped pupils, with excellent peripheral vision ; with visual fields of about 270° to 320°, sheep can see behind themselves without turning their heads. Many breeds have only short hair on

16218-451: The hoof, such as foot rot and foot scald may occur, and are treated with footbaths and other remedies. Foot rot is present in over 97% of flocks in the UK. These painful conditions cause lameness and hinder feeding. Ovine Johne's disease is a wasting disease that affects young sheep. Bluetongue disease is an insect-borne illness causing fever and inflammation of the mucous membranes . Ovine rinderpest (or peste des petits ruminants )

16371-516: The idealization of urban material pleasures to win over his love rather than resorting to the simplified pleasures of pastoral ideology. This can be seen in the listed items: "lined slippers", "purest gold", "silver dishes", and "ivory table" (lines 13, 15, 16, 21, 23). The speaker takes on a voyeuristic point of view with his love, and they are not directly interacting with the other true shepherds and nature. Pastoral shepherds and maidens usually have Greek names like Corydon or Philomela, reflecting

16524-479: The lush Canaanite lowlands "flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8), or in Babylon , the "great city" of Israelite exile. David , a righteous shepherd-boy associated with the arid hill-country, contrasts with Goliath and Saul , representatives of luxurious urban élites. Thus New Testament imagery of shepherds and their sheep builds on established cultural and economic distinctions familiar, directly or indirectly, to

16677-429: The margins of the sheep industry. Those that remain are maintained through the efforts of conservation organizations, breed registries, and individual farmers dedicated to their preservation. Sheep are herbivorous . Most breeds prefer to graze on grass and other short roughage , avoiding the taller woody parts of plants that goats readily consume. Both sheep and goats use their lips and tongues to select parts of

16830-445: The measurements were limited by wool, although photographs of the experiments indicate that only limited facial wool regrowth had occurred since shearing. In addition to facial wool (in some breeds), visual field limitations can include ears and (in some breeds) horns, so the visual field can be extended by tilting the head. Sheep eyes exhibit very low hyperopia and little astigmatism . Such visual characteristics are likely to produce

16983-424: The metre he chose was the dactylic hexameter associated with the most prestigious form of Greek poetry, epic . This blend of simplicity and sophistication would play a major part in later pastoral verse. Theocritus was imitated by the Greek poets Bion and Moschus . The Roman poet Virgil adapted pastoral into Latin with his highly influential Eclogues . Virgil introduces two very important uses of pastoral,

17136-466: The most famous painting in this style. Later, French artists were also attracted to the pastoral, notably Claude , Poussin (e.g., Et in Arcadia ego ) and Watteau (in his Fêtes galantes ). The Fête champêtre , with scenes of country people dancing was a popular subject in Flemish painting. Thomas Cole has a series of paintings titled The Course of Empire , and the second of these paintings (shown on

17289-466: The most important tropes of which he cites as religion (embodied by Pan); friendship; allegory;and poetic and musical calling. He concedes though that such a categorization is open to much misinterpretation. As well, Poggioli focused on the idea that Pastoral was a nostalgic and childish way of seeing the world. In The Oaten Flue , he claims that the shepherd was looked up to was because they were “an ideal kind of leisure class." Frank Kermode discusses

17442-557: The only species of mammal except for humans which exhibit exclusive homosexual behavior . About 10% of rams refuse to mate with ewes but readily mate with other rams, and thirty percent of all rams demonstrate at least some homosexual behavior. Additionally, a small number of females that were accompanied by a male fetus in utero (i.e. as fraternal twins ) are freemartins (female animals that are behaviorally masculine and lack functioning ovaries ). Sheep may fall victim to poisons, infectious diseases , and physical injuries. As

17595-427: The origin of the pastoral genre. Pastoral poems are set in beautiful rural landscapes, the literary term for which is "locus amoenus" (Latin for "beautiful place"), such as Arcadia , a rural region of Greece , mythological home of the god Pan , which was portrayed as a sort of Eden by the poets. The tasks of their employment with sheep and other rustic chores is held in the fantasy to be almost wholly undemanding and

17748-427: The past four hundred years, a range of writers have worked on theorizing the nature of pastoral. These include Friedrich Schiller , George Puttenham , William Empson , Frank Kermode , Raymond Williams , Renato Poggioli , Annabel Patterson, Paul Alpers, and Ken Hiltner. George Puttenham was one of the first Pastoral theorists. He did not see the form as merely a recording of a prior rustic way of life but

17901-417: The past. As a result, when society evolves and looks back to these representations, it considers its own present as the decline of the simple life of the past. He then discusses how the city's relationship with the country affected the economic and social aspects of the countryside. As the economy became a bigger part of society, many country newcomers quickly realized the potential and monetary value that lay in

18054-471: The pastoral within the historical context of the English Renaissance. His first condition of pastoral poetry is that it is an urban product. Kermode establishes that the pastoral is derived as an opposition between two modes of living, in the country and in the city. London was becoming a modern metropolis before the eyes of its citizens. The result of this large-scale urban sprawl left the people with

18207-539: The pastoral". He gives examples of post-pastoral works, including Cormac McCarthy ’s The Road (2006), Margaret Atwood ’s The Year of the Flood (2009) and Maggie Gee ’s The Ice People (1999), and he points out that these works "raise questions of ethics, sustenance and sustainability that might exemplify [Leo] Marx’s vision of the pastoral needing to find new forms in the face of new conditions". Gifford states that British eco-critics such as Greg Garrard have used

18360-421: The pastoral. Musical settings of pastoral poetry became increasingly common in first polyphonic and then monodic madrigals : these later led to the cantata and the serenata , in which pastoral themes remained on a consistent basis. Partial musical settings of Giovanni Battista Guarini 's Il pastor fido were highly popular: the texts of over 500 madrigals were taken from this one play alone. Tasso 's Aminta

18513-472: The peaceful country. But as "the dreaming man" indicates, this is just a dream for Alfius. He is too consumed in his career as a usurer to leave it behind for the country. Later Silver Latin poets who wrote pastoral poetry, modeled principally upon Virgil's Eclogues, include Calpurnius Siculus and Nemesianus and the author(s) of the Einsiedeln Eclogues . Italian poets revived the pastoral from

18666-415: The plant that are easier to digest or higher in nutrition. Sheep, however, graze well in monoculture pastures where most goats fare poorly. Like all ruminants, sheep have a complex digestive system composed of four chambers, allowing them to break down cellulose from stems, leaves, and seed hulls into simpler carbohydrates . When sheep graze , vegetation is chewed into a mass called a bolus , which

18819-512: The play who embraces and appreciates both the real and idealized life and manages to make the two ideas coexist. Therefore, Shakespeare explores city and country life as being appreciated through the coexistence of the two. Pastoral science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction which uses bucolic, rural settings, like other forms of pastoral literature. Since it is a subgenre of science fiction, authors may set stories either on Earth or another habitable planet or moon, sometimes including

18972-418: The play, Shakespeare employs various characters to illustrate pastoralism . His protagonists Rosalind and Orlando metaphorically depict the importance of the coexistence of realism and idealism, or urban and rural life. While Orlando is absorbed in the ideal, Rosalind serves as a mediator, bringing Orlando back down to reality and embracing the simplicity of pastoral love. She is the only character throughout

19125-418: The pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" exhibits the concept of Gifford's second definition of 'pastoral'. The speaker of the poem, who is the titled shepherd, draws on

19278-486: The poem is a harmonious and joyous elation of the memories that Jonson had at the manor. It is beautifully written with iambic pentameter, a style that Jonson eloquently uses to describe the culture of Penshurst. It includes Pan and Bacchus as notable company of the manor. Pan, Greek god of the Pastoral world, half man and half goat, was connected with both hunting and shepherds; Bacchus was the god of wine, intoxication and ritual madness. This reference to Pan and Bacchus in

19431-638: The position of other sheep in the flock. This constant monitoring is probably what keeps the sheep in a flock as they move along grazing. Sheep become stressed when isolated; this stress is reduced if they are provided with a mirror, indicating that the sight of other sheep reduces stress. Taste is the most important sense in sheep, establishing forage preferences, with sweet and sour plants being preferred and bitter plants being more commonly rejected. Touch and sight are also important in relation to specific plant characteristics, such as succulence and growth form. The ram uses his vomeronasal organ (sometimes called

19584-421: The productivity of flocks. Worms are the most common internal parasites. They are ingested during grazing, incubate within the sheep, and are expelled through the digestive system (beginning the cycle again). Oral anti-parasitic medicines, known as drenches , are given to a flock to treat worms, sometimes after worm eggs in the feces has been counted to assess infestation levels. Afterwards, sheep may be moved to

19737-403: The ram during courting; somewhat similar rumbling sounds may be made by the ewe, especially when with her neonate lambs. A snort (explosive exhalation through the nostrils) may signal aggression or a warning, and is often elicited from startled sheep. In sheep breeds lacking facial wool, the visual field is wide. In 10 sheep (Cambridge, Lleyn and Welsh Mountain breeds, which lack facial wool),

19890-565: The resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe. Initially, sheep were kept solely for meat, milk and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC, and the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later. Sheep husbandry spread quickly in Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during

20043-673: The right) depicts the perfect pastoral setting. Pastoral imagery and symbolism feature heavily in Christianity and the Bible. Jesus calls himself the "Good Shepherd" in John 10:11 , contrasting his role as the Lamb of God . Many Christian denominations use the title " Pastor ", a word rooted in the Biblical metaphor of shepherding. ( Pastor in Latin means "shepherd"). The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) uses

20196-425: The rumen, feed passes into the reticulum and the omasum ; special feeds such as grains may bypass the rumen altogether. After the first three chambers, food moves into the abomasum for final digestion before processing by the intestines . The abomasum is the only one of the four chambers analogous to the human stomach, and is sometimes called the "true stomach". Other than forage, the other staple feed for sheep

20349-469: The rump to prevent fly-strike, normally performed when the sheep is a lamb. Nose bots are fly larvae that inhabit a sheep's sinuses , causing breathing difficulties and discomfort. Common signs are a discharge from the nasal passage, sneezing, and frantic movement such as head shaking. External parasites may be controlled through the use of backliners , sprays or immersive sheep dips . A wide array of bacterial and viral diseases affect sheep. Diseases of

20502-449: The same species or a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically similar groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity." Almost all sheep are classified as being best suited to furnishing a certain product: wool, meat, milk, hides, or a combination in a dual-purpose breed. Other features used when classifying sheep include face color (generally white or black), tail length, presence or lack of horns, and

20655-624: The same time, Italian and German composers developed a genre of vocal and instrumental pastorals, distinguished by certain stylistic features, associated with Christmas Eve. The pastoral, and parodies of the pastoral, continued to play an important role in musical history throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. John Gay may have satirized the pastoral in The Beggar's Opera , but also wrote an entirely sincere libretto for Handel 's Acis and Galatea . Rousseau 's Le Devin du village draws on pastoral roots, and Metastasio 's libretto Il re pastore

20808-422: The sense of “reaching beyond” the contraints of the pastoral genre, but while continuing the core conceptual elements that have defined the pastoral tradition. Gifford states that the post-pastoral is "best used to describe works that successfully suggest a collapse of the human/nature divide whilst being aware of the problematics involved", noting that it is "more about connection than the disconnections essential to

20961-442: The sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth. As with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation, then the rear teeth grind it before it is swallowed. There are eight lower front teeth in ruminants, but there is some disagreement as to whether these are eight incisors , or six incisors and two incisor-shaped canines . This means that

21114-570: The spread of sheep raising. Pliny the Elder , in his Natural History ( Naturalis Historia ), speaks at length about sheep and wool. European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards. Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral . They differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as

21267-528: The true course of nature and its incompatibility with the love that the Shepherd yearns for with the nymph. Terry Gifford defined the anti-pastoral in his 2012 essay "Pastoral, Anti-Pastoral and Post-Pastoral as Reading Strategies" as an often explicit correction of pastoral, emphasizing "realism" over romance, highlighting problematic elements (showing tensions, disorder and inequalities), challenging literary constructs as false distortions and demythologizing mythical locations such as Arcadia and Shangri-La . In

21420-419: The untouched land. Furthermore, this new system encouraged a social stratification in the countryside. With the implementation of paper money came a hierarchy in the working system, as well as the "inheritance of titles and making of family names". Poggioli was concerned with how death reconciled itself with the pastoral, and thus came up with a loose categorization of death in the pastoral as 'funeral elegy',

21573-411: The visual field ranged from 298° to 325°, averaging 313.1°, with binocular overlap ranging from 44.5° to 74°, averaging 61.7°. In some breeds, unshorn facial wool can limit the visual field; in some individuals, this may be enough to cause "wool blindness". In 60 Merinos, visual fields ranged from 219.1° to 303.0°, averaging 269.9°, and the binocular field ranged from 8.9° to 77.7°, averaging 47.5°; 36% of

21726-823: The way for invasive plants. However, sheep also prefer to eat invasives such as cheatgrass , leafy spurge , kudzu and spotted knapweed over native species such as sagebrush , making grazing sheep effective for conservation grazing . Research conducted in Imperial County, California compared lamb grazing with herbicides for weed control in seedling alfalfa fields. Three trials demonstrated that grazing lambs were just as effective as herbicides in controlling winter weeds. Entomologists also compared grazing lambs to insecticides for insect control in winter alfalfa. In this trial, lambs provided insect control as effectively as insecticides. Sheep are flock animals and strongly gregarious; much sheep behavior can be understood on

21879-405: The woods, the river, his Pupil Mary, and the future. Marvell used nature as a thread to weave together a poem centered around man. We once again see nature fully providing for man. Marvell also continuously compares nature to art and seems to point out that art can never accomplish on purpose what nature can achieve accidentally or spontaneously. Robert Herrick 's The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home

22032-649: The word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap . A group of sheep is called a flock. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age. As a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and are represented in much modern language and symbolism . As livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral , Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies —such as

22185-418: The world around her. Andrew Marvell 's " Upon Appleton House " was written when Marvell was working as a tutor for Lord Fairfax's daughter Mary, in 1651. The poem is very rich with metaphors that relate to religion, politics and history. Similar to Jonson's "To Penshurst", Marvell's poem is describing a pastoral estate. It moves through the house itself, its history, the gardens, the meadows and other grounds,

22338-503: Was also a favourite. As opera developed, the dramatic pastoral came to the fore with such works as Jacopo Peri 's Dafne and, most notably, Monteverdi 's L'Orfeo . Pastoral opera remained popular throughout the 17th-century, and not just in Italy, as is shown by the French genre of pastorale héroïque , Englishman Henry Lawes 's music for Milton's Comus (not to mention John Blow 's Venus and Adonis ), and Spanish zarzuela . At

22491-465: Was also written in the 17th century. In this pastoral work, he paints the reader a colorful picture of the benefits reaped from hard work. This is an atypical interpretation of the pastoral, given that there is a celebration of labor involved as opposed to central figures living in leisure and nature just taking its course independently. This poem was mentioned in Raymond Williams ', The Country and

22644-421: Was confirmed in "visual cliff" experiments; behavioral responses indicating depth perception are seen in lambs at one day old. Sheep are thought to have colour vision, and can distinguish between a variety of colours: black, red, brown, green, yellow, and white. Sight is a vital part of sheep communication, and when grazing, they maintain visual contact with each other. Each sheep lifts its head upwards to check

22797-497: Was derived from Thomas Lodge 's pastoral romance Rosalynde ) and The Winter's Tale , of which Act 4 Scene 4 is a lengthy pastoral digression. The forest in As You Like It can be seen as a place of pastoral idealization, where life is simpler and purer, and its inhabitants live more closely to each other, nature and God than their urban counterparts. However, Shakespeare plays with the bounds of pastoral idealization. Throughout

22950-692: Was little Classical precedent, with the possible exception of Greek satyr plays . Poliziano 's Orfeo (1480) shows the beginnings of the new form, but it reached its zenith in the late 16th century with Tasso 's Aminta (1573), Isabella Andreini 's Mirtilla (1588), and Guarini 's Il pastor fido (1590). John Lyly 's Endimion (1579) brought the Italian-style pastoral play to England. John Fletcher 's The Faithful Shepherdess , Ben Jonson 's The Sad Shepherd and Sidney's The Lady of May are later examples. Some of Shakespeare 's plays contain pastoral elements, most notably As You Like It (whose plot

23103-496: Was published as a preface to Pastorals. In this work Pope sets standards for pastoral literature and critiques many popular poets, one of whom is Spenser, along with his contemporary opponent Ambrose Philips . During this time period Ambrose Philips, who is often overlooked because of Pope, modeled his poetry after the native English form of Pastoral, employing it as a medium to express the true nature and longing of Man. He strove to write in this fashion to conform to what he thought

23256-402: Was set over 30 times, most famously by Mozart . Rameau was an outstanding exponent of French pastoral opera. Beethoven also wrote his famous Pastoral Symphony , avoiding his usual musical dynamism in favour of relatively slow rhythms. More concerned with psychology than description, he labelled the work "more the expression of feeling than [realistic] painting". The pastoral also appeared as

23409-469: Was the original intent of Pastoral literature. As such, he centered his themes around the simplistic life of the Shepherd, and, personified the relationship that humans once had with nature. John Gay , who came a little later was criticized for his poem's artificiality by Doctor Johnson and attacked for their lack of realism by George Crabbe , who attempted to give a true picture of rural life in his poem The Village. In 1590, Edmund Spenser also composed

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