No Life for Bearded Billies and Lithesome Lambs

Factory Farmed Goats and Sheep

Short History of Goats and Sheep

--Goats

--Sheep

Farmed Goats

Farmed Sheep

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Short History of Goats and Sheep                                            Back to Top

Sheep were domesticated around 11,000 years ago, not long after the dog was domesticated. Goats were domesticated a short time later. Goats and sheep are herbivores; however, sheep like to graze, eating a wide variety of grasses, and goats like to browse, reaching for leaves, fruit, and bark off trees. Both are similar to cows in that they are ruminants, meaning they digest food in their first stomach and then regurgitate it to chew it again. Both goats and sheep are cloven or split-hoofed. In ancient times, cloven hooves were said to be the sign of Satan. As with many superstitions, we no longer believe in this connection and, in fact, know that hoofed animals actually make great friends.

Goats                                                                                        Back to Top

Goats were most likely domesticated in Persia (now known as Iran) about 3000 B.C. They spread through Europe, Asia, and Africa and to a lesser extent in the United States. Goats can live from nine to nineteen years. They form herds, known as tribes, which include several nannies or does (adult females), a buck or billy (adult male), and their kids (offspring).

Kids love to frolic and gambol, sometimes jumping on their mothers’ backs. Actually, goats like to be on top of anything—rocks, stumps, and sheds, for instance. They are hardy, agile animals who enjoy living on cliffs and in arid climates. Some people consider goats as smart as, if not smarter than, dogs. Goats are curious, intelligent, affectionate, and extraverted.

Sheep                                                                                       Back to Top

Sheep were brought to North America on Christopher Columbus’ second voyage in 1493. Sheep can live from seven to thirteen years. Flocks (also called mobs) consist of ewes (adult females), rams (adult males), and their lambs (offspring). Ewes form a strong bond with their lambs and remain close throughout their lives. Lambs play bow to each other to invite play just as dogs do. Lambs also express their desire to play by leaping vertically and kicking out with their hind legs.

Sheep are passive animals so are often thought to be dimwitted or dumb. Far from it. Sheep are just below pigs and on a par with cattle in terms of intelligence. To keep them safe from predators, sheep have a keen sense of sound and smell. Plus, their peripheral vision is so good they can see behind themselves without turning their heads. This allows them to see predators from an almost 300-degree angle.

Domestication has changed sheep so much they are almost helpless. They are one farmed animal who cannot return to the wild and survive, unlike cows, pigs, and chickens. Those domesticated animals would have a difficult time returning to the wild (and we are not suggesting they should), but the learned helplessness that has been bred into sheep has left them unable to return to a wild state. Feral sheep exist mostly on islands where there are no predators.

Farmed Goats                                                                          Back to Top

Goats are farmed for their hair (angora, cashmere, mohair), milk, hides (Moroccan and kid leather), and meat. In the United States, two million goats are raised for meat and another half million for milk and their hides. All are eventually slaughtered.

Although most goats are kept on range or pasture land rather than in concentrated animal feeding operations, they are subjected to extreme weather conditions. Even if they are confined to feedlots, there is little protection from weather changes. Their horns are removed, without the use of anesthesia, through a process called disbudding. If disbudding is done after the horns start to grow out, the goat may experience chronic sinus infections as the horn grows into the sinus cavity.

Large numbers of goats are slaughtered in accordance with ritual laws—halal or kosher. These animals must be fully conscious, often hanging by a back leg, while their throats are slit. Once they have bled to death, they are then processed for their meat.

Farmed Sheep                                                                        Back to Top

Six million sheep are raised in the United States mostly for their wool and meat. Many are raised on pasture land with an ever increasing number being factory farmed. Four to five million lambs under the age of six months are slaughtered annually. Lamb, the meat of young sheep, is often associated with religious holidays, particularly Passover (the blood of the lamb is said to have protected Jews during the first Passover), Easter (the lamb is the symbol of Christ sacrificed on the cross, the Pascal lamb, the lamb of God), and Ramadan (Muslims break their month-long fast with a meal of lamb and rice). Mutton is the name given to meat from older sheep.

Sheep are raised not just for their meat but for their wool, as well. Sheep are often shorn in the middle of winter without thought to the animal’s discomfort. Some sheep have the skin of their rump and back legs cut off to prevent myiasis or flystrike, an infection of parasitic fly larvae. The procedure is called mulesing. This traumatic procedure is often done without anesthesia and is common in Australian sheep rearing.

Sheep are raised also for their milk; their bones to make dice and buttons; and other body parts to make glue, gelatin, surgical sutures, strings for musical instruments and tennis rackets, and lanolin used as the base for cosmetics and other products, among other uses.

China, Australia, and New Zealand are the leading producers of sheep. Australia exports much of their sheep live in converted oil tankers to the Middle East as those nations require live animals for ritual slaughter.

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