If you watch a sheep walking normally you will notice that it opts for quite a slow pace. The speed at which it will move will only quicken due to pressure of being driven, or due to fear of something. Left to themselves, sheep ‘flow’ without urgency across a landscape: they gradually follow, in a relatively scattered way, in the direction which the fore-runners of their group have chosen; or else they walk in line one-behind-the-other.
Sheep, therefore, like to move in an unhurried way. Chase and rush stress them.
Sheep, as we know, are prey animals. And, when in a domesticated situation, they are at the bidding and mercy of humans. So, sheep are both subject to the instincts and desires of their predators, and to the preferences and wishes of humans. And concerning pace of movement, because of predator and human wants, the rate of movement of sheep is liable to change of becoming faster, and so not of a speed suitable to a sheep and which will keep their well-being.
Humans move sheep, for their purposes, and which are of wide range. Some movement on hoof is, and has been especially in the past, before use for transport of trains and motorised vehicles, of great distance. Other movements are gathering-ins from hills etc, shiftings from one pasture to another, or simply roundings up within a field. A dimension to any movement - ‘time is money’ etc - is that any movement of sheep is wanted by the humans to be done as quickly as possible. And, in association, the job is likely wished to be done as easily as possible.
This sets the scene for sheep to be moved too fast and too stressfully. The movement in the past over long areas - droving - developed its own culture and mode of operation, and with drovers’ and associates’ needs and priorities - as opposed to sheep’s optimum welfare - probably most often to the fore.
A dog, a sheepdog, has long been part of the process of herding and gathering sheep. Dogs are innately sheep predators: so, canines’ natural instinct to chase sheep is harnessed for use by the human to assist and hasten their moving of sheep. Vital is that a sheepdog be very well-trained. The sheepdog needs to reach the position of having capacity to move sheep with slowness and steadiness. But however good their training, the dog will likely be moving sheep more quickly than is the latter’s natural inclination. And the sheep, meanwhile, being in close proximity to a predator - the dog - will be ‘nervy’ and wanting to rush away from the canine. To save their feet, and to speed up the process, humans have done, and still do, round up sheep mounted on a horse. The annual sheep round-up in Iceland - réttir - is still partly achieved by riders on horseback. In our present day, speeding up of the process of moving sheep - and alongside saving of human legwork - are produced by driving quad bikes and all terrain vehicles over countryside and motor vehicles along roads, and by, in some large areas and parts of the world, piloting helicopters and planes.
It can reasonably be asserted that none of these ‘accoutrements’ to moving sheep enable sheep to be moved without speeding up of their natural pace, or without them being given stress.
Not entirely every way of moving sheep is by use of some kind of added assistance. There remains the traditional method: sheep being walked by humans. But anyone who has led sheep or driven them along from behind will know that even their own pace, the pace which humans walk, is still faster than is liked by sheep. The human, to avoid rushing or stressing the sheep, needs to take their own speed of walk down to be that which the sheep adopts - and that natural pace is pretty slow.
To be ignorant of what pace sheep like to move is difficult. All which humans need to do, to know the pace that sheep like to move on the hoof, is to watch sheep walk. Then a movement of sheep can go be done at that pace. Going slow is not merely doing what is most comfortable for the sheep in terms of putting hooves on the ground, it represents doing what it likely to be best for the sheep in terms of maintaining their safety and minimizing their stress. There is advice and instruction on offer from around the world on how best to move sheep: examples are: ‘Always move sheep slowly, calmly and quietly.’ (’Handling sheep and lambs: Moving sheep’, Sheep 201, USA); ‘Calm sheep are easier to move…. People should be quiet when moving animals. Yelling and loud noise is very stressful. High pitched noises are especially stressful.’ (‘Need to Know: How to handle and restrain sheep’, Alberta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Animals); ‘Moving sheep quietly and slowly reduces the risk of animals going the wrong way …. Sheep must be moved at a pace that will not cause exhaustion, heat stress or injury.’ (‘Safe sheep handling guide: Mustering’, Worksafe, New Zealand).
So, there is information available concerning how sheep should be moved, and explaining the reasons. And this information seems to try to dovetail the sheep’s best interests in the situation with those of the sheep farmer and shepherd. Therefore, necessary awareness ought to be present. But it seems that humans can nonetheless sometimes put serving their ends above sheep welfare. There can be an ‘accommodation’ to the entity of operating to sheep’s pace and style when moving them.
Not catering to the ideal of moving sheep at their own pace can be done for: understandable reasons; expediency; what on balance is regarded as a higher priority.
In the UK on television has been ‘The Great Mountain Sheep Gather’. This BBC programme was undeniably picturesque. Its ‘gimmick’ was to have wearing a camera one of the large number of sheep who were making the lengthy, and demanding by way of terrain, on-hoof journey down from the fells to the farm. The truth was out. If there had only been long camera shots of the journey, it would doubtless have been masked. The pace of journey was too fast for the sheep.
Movement of sheep along a street in a built-up area represents an operation in an arena of, unusual, complexity. In this circumstance, while it will remain desirable that the sheep should move at a pace that suits them and that does not give them stress in itself, there is the important dimension that the sheep are in a very dangerous situation of sharing the road with motor transport. They will be being met or passed by vehicles of a type likely to be moving a lot faster than they. And meanwhile vehicle drivers will be assuming that they are the only travellers on a road, until they come upon the surprise, and need for quick reaction, of sheep in their midst and space. In this context, it is understandable that a driver of sheep would want to get their sheep as quickly as possible out of danger of receiving harm from vehicles and away from risk of causing any accident to others. In the instance, greater priority exists than keeping to the sheep’s preferred pace of movement. And with a situation that is both unusual to them and by its nature very stressful, moving the sheep out of the circumstance as soon as possible, and so encouraging them to adopt a rather quicker pace than their preference, can be seen as the best action both in their interests - and those of others.
As has been said, if sheep are observed when walking it will be manifest that it is their nature to be slow on their feet. And in process of moving, stress to sheep is minimised if they are kept calm and are not rushed. Therefore, in moving sheep the default position should be to let them go at their own pace, except when there are circumstances which demand that the sheep should move more quickly. Towards achieving slow movement, and of the optimum and best calibre for the sheep, the role of the sheepdog is pivotal. It rests therefore with sheep farmers and shepherds to train the dog who is working with their sheep to move at a slow enough pace. There always exists the potential for a flock of sheep to regard the dog herding it as a sheep worrier rather than as a sheepdog.
Sheep like to take their time in walking and to move unhurried. Human and sheepdog should not do what is best for them when moving sheep, but what is optimum for the sheep. They should see to it that sheep can walk at their own pace.
17th September 2021