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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

> being one with the herd

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

Baaaah.

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

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

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

Goats are fascinating. Sheep largely keep to themselves.

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

Goats make great pets.

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

> and a handful of pygmies for meat.

Is cannibalism legal where you are?

Pygmy is also a type of goat.

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

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