It’s a commonplace that domestic sheep are quite stupid and easily-led. Of course, it’s also a commonplace that lemmings hurl themselves off cliffs to their death, and we all know that’s bogus.
So, first off, are sheep noticeably dumber than cattle or other domestic herbivorous mammals?
Second, if they are stupid, is that the result of selective breeding? Are wild ovines as dumb as domestic ones?
I think it’s generally accepted that part of creating domestic breeds is selecting for mental traits like “docility”. It may not exactly equate with intelligence but it’s pretty close. So I’d say domestic sheep are less intelligent than wild sheep - or at least they act less intelligent.
It’s not just that; domesticated animals just don’t need as much brainpower as the wild ones; they are protected, and have us to solve harder problems for them. So over time it’s simply to be expected that their intelligence would atrophy, since the evolutionary pressure to keep the higher level of intelligence has been removed.
The power of testosterone is clearly seen in the behavior of sheep. Ewes are as docile and meek as could be believed. Yet no rational person wants to take on a ram who sees his flock in danger. They may not be much different from other domesticated critters, but the effect of hormones becomes apparent in the ovine catergory. An animal who is willing to hit you with his brain as hard as possible is something to behold.
Did we do it thorugh the process of domestication? I don’t know.But before you call sheep stupid, consider the similarity between the reaction of the male of the species and all others. Intelligence is not the end-all be all of mental ability. Evolution has an intelligence of its own, as telling as the selecttive process that has formed the world around us.
When the nuclear winter has eradictaed us superior sapiens, the ovines will still roam the mountainsides, merrily munching the monocotyledonous plants, we who would not have survived, would be jealous of their mundacious mellifluence, joining with cockroaches to opine ‘remember those humans who chortled in their superior status, where are they now?’
I don’t think there is any evidence that wild sheep are more intelligent than domesticated, apart from the ability to recognise what is a predator.
Coming from a substantial farm, it was interesting to note the behavioural differences of all the usual aged flocks (each flock being of the one age and sex) that are run compared with the “killers” which were used for station rations.
The “killers” are used to seeing humans as predators i.e. they are usually kept in the same paddock all year, a human turns up periodically, they are rounded up and one or two are taken and they don’t come back.
When they do need to be moved (e.g. for shearing) the killers are an absolute bloody pain to handle. They are very flightly, they gallop rather than walk, don’t see as much need to keep in one flock and will scatter as individuals or small groups, are more likely to charge the dog if cornered, will jump fences, aren’t as fazed by water and will climb. In all, they behave much more like goats or wild sheep except that they don’t have the ability to shed their fleece annually. And that’s in animals genetically identical, even of the same generation, as the aged flocks.
I have never seen a ram “protecting his flock”. As with all domesticated livestock that I am aware off, it’s love 'em and leave 'em. Outside the time when a ewe is in oestrus, rams only look out for themselves. Being charged by a ewe protecting her lamb is commonplace, though it isn’t particularly dangerous.
Interesting (although I was initially confused by the idea of “killer” sheep :D). IANASF, but are we really saying that the “killers” *remember *that Flossie and Cottontail were taken away by that sinister man last year, never to return? I dunno, that seems a bit of a stretch. Maybe it’s just that the killers are generally less familiar with humans? You say that they are kept in the same paddock all the time, which suggests that the other flocks are accustomed to being moved around, which I imagine involves some interaction with humans.
Well we didn’t give our sheep names, but the “killers” were a mob of around 70-100, topped up each year by the ones that didn’t make the market consignment. And every couple of weeks we’d knock off a couple. I don’t know whether that constitutes sentient meat. Sounds a pretty standard fight or flight response to me.
That’s probably true for some domesticated species – mainly the livestock ones that are raised for food or fiber.
The species that have been domesticated & bred for using purposes often seem to have gained higher intelligence during the process. For example, dogs are often considered more intelligent than the wolves they came from. (Working dogs, that is – the herding, guarding, hunting breeds. The toy breeds, however, have been bred to be just that.) Domesticated carrier pigeons are probably more intelligent than your average city statue-shitting pigeon. Most modern horse breeds would outdo their wild ancestors. (You might argue that even domesticated cats are more intelligent than wild cats – after all, most cats have trained their humans to be servants.)
This is rather complicated by the fact that measuring intelligence is very difficult. Even in humans, there are arguments about the validity of various IQ tests. Intelligence tests for other species are even harder to create & validate.
What are the demands on a sheep’s intellect in the wild? They need to be able to eat grass, recognize a basic herd structure, and run away from predators. That’s not a lot.
But if that were true, or rather if that consequence had enough effect on sheep IQ over the relatively short period of time we’ve domesticated them, wouldn’t the same hold for all domesticated animals ? Yet pigs are supposed to be quite bright, about on par with dogs (cite) despite being bred for roughly the same traits as sheep (lots of meat, good health, fertility and not being too stroppy). I suppose truffle hogs are another story, but then they’re a really small subset of pigs.