Author Topic: Are sheep racist? (Read 3678 times)

epherdwicks · « **on:** April 25, 2017, 07:55:35 pm »

At risk of sounding racist myself, has anyone else had experience of ewes shunning one white-marked twin for a black one? I now have two who have had different coloured lambs and rejected the whiter one. Being Herdwicks one expects the lambs to be mainly black, so is this a genetic thing to try and keep the line pure? Or are they more visible to prey?

bazzais · « **Reply #1 on:** April 25, 2017, 09:08:55 pm »

There was a BBC program on reconisation of the same breed or at least the same colour in sheep. It might just be its rejecting the weaker lamb though?

Or as you suggest it might just be protecting the one it 'recognises' as its own.

Who knows with mums and lambs - no ryme of reason most the time - but i did seee that program where sheep will favour sheep of the same look of the dominant breed (if youve had more than one sire)

Bottom line though - sheep are not racist as they have no conception of it - only humans are racists.

bazzais · « **Reply #2 on:** April 25, 2017, 09:10:39 pm »

Favourism is probably a better word - if I could spell it.

Sheep are not racist

shotblastuk · « **Reply #3 on:** April 25, 2017, 09:24:53 pm »

Quote from: bazzais on April 25, 2017, 09:10:39 pm

Favourism is probably a better word - if I could spell it.

Sheep are not racist

Tell that to my little black shetland who can't get accepted with my flock of Cotswolds. They really don't like her but accept her white twin sister.

TheSmilingSheep · « **Reply #4 on:** April 25, 2017, 10:37:07 pm »

Interestingly, we put a Balwen (black) ram lamb to nine ewes last autumn. Five ewes were his own breed, and four ewes were white Shetlands.... We only gave him 18 days, and the Balwen ewes were all first timers, but when scanned, all of the Balwens were empty and all of the Shetlands were carrying lambs....
Ho hum...
In the past, these crosses have come out all looking like Shetlands, save they have fluffy Balwen tails. This year, same result save for one little ewe lamb who is completely black, save for a white monk's cap! Her mother loves her and her Shetland looking twin equally!

Fleecewife · « **Reply #5 on:** April 26, 2017, 12:10:58 am »

Let's say that sheep are very aware of colour in other sheep, also size and breed.

We keep Hebs which are black, but in the past we have kept various other breeds of different colours. One year we fostered a texel lamb onto a Heb ewe who had lost her own lambs. All went well. The following year, we tried running some of our Hebs with a texel tup. The only one which would let that tup anywhere near her was the one who had fostered the texel tup lamb. The ewes were used to other white sheep, but not texels. Maybe they just found him ugly

Flocks tend to be pretty antisocial towards newcomers whatever their colour, perhaps because they are a cohesive group, so incomers are recognised as not part of that group. They soon settle in once everyone has lambed together.

Sbom · « **Reply #6 on:** April 26, 2017, 07:28:37 am »

Not sheep, but our tog goat had two babies, the first tog marked and the second pure white. The white kid had to be removed after a short while as her mother was picking her up with her horns and chucking her round the shed! She was kept in a dog crate in the pen but her mother never took her and actively bullied her.

Foobar · « **Reply #7 on:** April 26, 2017, 09:43:16 am »

My black sheep will not go near white sheep. Not even near a handsome white ram that escaped from my neighbours field, during tupping time!

DartmoorLiz · « **Reply #8 on:** April 26, 2017, 10:03:19 am »

I bought a lleyn ram and he would not serve my black faced ewes the first year. He did the next so we decided it was just because he did not recognise them as his own kind as he'd only ever seen lleyns but after a year he realised they were just as sexy.

I think it is more a case of wary of things they don't understand rather than anything else.

silkwoodzwartbles · « **Reply #9 on:** April 26, 2017, 11:49:13 am »

My Zwartbles ram prefers white ewes to other Zwartbles, borne out by the cross bred ewes put to him lambing in February whilst he didn't serve my Zwartbles until I'd removed the cross breds and left him no choice - the pedigrees lambed in April.

Katrina · « **Reply #10 on:** April 26, 2017, 02:04:45 pm »

I have a white ewe who has an identity problem. She rejected her white lamb this year, who looks just like her but loves the black one (both equal size etc). She loved the black one last year. She hangs out with the other coloured sheep and not her white same breed. I think if I held a mirror up to her and she could understand the concept, she would be very shocked

Marches Farmer · « **Reply #11 on:** April 26, 2017, 03:31:32 pm »

We put our Badger face to a Southdown tup every second or third year, to give commercial type crosses to sell as stores. One year we tried it the other way round and put the Southdown tegs to a BF ram. They all lambed twins with no problems and every one rejected the lambs out of hand. The lambs looked quite like an SD - a slightly narrower, mottled face but otherwise very similar. Not going to do that again.