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During my university days, I did a thesis project looking at antimicrobial resistance in sheep populations in Ontario, Canada. I have an impressive story about
by giarc 3y ago
During my university days, I did a thesis project looking at antimicrobial resistance in sheep populations in Ontario, Canada. I have an impressive story about dogs protecting sheep flocks.
I was on a big sheep farm (1100-1500 sheep) that was divided amongst 3 pastures. The farm probably had 20-30 Great Pyrenees dogs that guarded the flocks. Without any human intervention or training, they would divide themselves amongst the 3 pastures. One "sentinel" dog would travel between the pastures (through other fields and properties) and somehow communicate with the other dogs. When one flock would experience an increase in coyote attacks, this sentinel dog would go to the other flocks and retrieve some additional dogs and "fortify" the flock with the attacks. After the coyote learned not to mess with this flock, the dogs would then naturally redistribute themselves amongst the flocks again.
I have another great story about a "sheep in sheeps clothing" that's pretty cool. Happy to share if people are interested.
- pstuart 3y ago> Happy to share if people are interested. Please do!
- giarc 3y agoIt's a bit gory, but lots about farming is. We were in the barn at another farm and they had a ton of lambs running around. One looked quite a bit different than others, it looked like he was wearing a white sweater. The farmer explained that this lambs mother had died and so he had no ewe to milk from (ewes won't let random lambs milk from them). So what they do is take a stillborn lamb from a different ewe, remove this 'donor' lambs hide and put it on the orphan lamb. This orphan lamb now smells like the other ewes baby and can now milk from his "adopted" mom. When they don't have a stillborn lamb, they have to bottle feed the lambs which is a lot of work. Using the hide from another lamb allows the lamb to feed normally.
- joenot443 3y agoMy family grew up on farms in Ontario - whereabouts were you working? Do tell about the other sheep story!
- giarc 3y agoMy project had me visiting a bunch of farms. I'd interview the farmer about their antibiotic use with their sheep (specifically extra-label drug use). We'd then collect stool samples from a variety of the sheep to test for antimicrobial resistant bugs. I went to University of Guelph, but I feel like most of the farms were on the east side of Toronto.