Life habits of sheep
1、 Strong sociability
Sheep's social behavior is very strong, and it is easy to establish a group structure. sheep farm equipment.It mainly transmits and receives various information through sensory activities such as sight, hearing, smell and touch, so as to maintain and adjust the activities among group members. The winning sequence of sheep and groups helps to maintain this structure. In sheep flocks, it is usually the familiar sheep that only form a small group, and the small group then forms a large group. In the natural population, the head sheep of the flock is mostly the ewe with older age and more offspring. It can also be selected as the head sheep by taking advantage of the characteristics of quick movement, easy training and good memory of the goat. It should be noted that sheep that often fall behind are often either sick or old and weak.
2、 Wide food spectrum
The sheep has a long and thin face, a sharp mouth, thin lips and sharp teeth. There is a central longitudinal groove in the middle of the upper lip, which is flexible in movement. The lower jaw incisors have a certain inclination outward. It is very beneficial for eating low grass, grass, flowers and shrubs on the ground, and it chews grass seeds fully. It is known as "scavenger". Because sheep are good at eating short grass, they can be mixed with sheep and sheep, or sheep can also be herded in short grass pasture where they can't feed horses and sheep. According to the test, 66% of the plant species on the semi-desert grassland cannot be used by sheep, while only 38% of cotton and goats. In the feeding test of more than 600 plants, goats can eat 88% of them, sheep 80%, and sheep, horse and pig 73%, 64% and 46% respectively, which indicates that sheep have a wide range of food, and sheep are most likely to be tired of monotonous forage.
The feeding characteristics of sheep and goats are obviously different: the young branches and leaves of the mountain, while sheep can only feed on the weeds and branches on the ground or at the bottom; When sheep and goats herd together, the goats always go ahead to grab food, while the sheep slowly follow the rear and lower their heads to nibble; Goats have developed bitter receptors on their tongue and are more willing to eat various bitter plants. Compared with fine wool sheep, coarse wool sheep like to eat "grass walking", that is, they like to pick grass tips and leaves, eat while walking, move more frequently, swim faster, and can pick snow and eat grass. High recognition ability for local poisonous weeds; However, fine-wooled sheep and their hybrids eat "dish grass" (standing grass), swim slowly, often fall behind, and have poor ability to pick snow, eat grass and identify poisonous weeds.
3、 Like dry and wet
"Sheep prefer to be dry and detest of humidity, and avoid dampness, heat, dampness and cold most. goat hay feeder with roof.It is beneficial to live in high and dry places", which indicates that high and dry is the best place for sheep grazing, enclosure and rest. If you live in a muddy and wet place for a long time, sheep will only suffer from parasitic disease and rot disease, and even hair quality will be reduced. Hair loss is aggravated. Different sheep and goat breeds have different adaptability to climate. For example, fine wool sheep likes warm, dry and semi-arid climate, while meat sheep and meat and wool semi-fine wool sheep prefer warm, wet climate with small temperature difference throughout the year. However, Romney sheep with long-wool meat breeds can better withstand humid and hot climate and adapt to swamp areas, and has strong resistance to foot rot.
According to the adaptability of sheep to humidity, when a relative humidity is higher than 85%, it is a high humidity environment, and when it is lower than 50%, it is a low humidity environment. The average relative humidity in many areas of northern China is 40% - 60% (only winter and spring plums can sometimes reach 75%), so it is suitable for raising sheep, especially fine wool sheep; Noodles are more suitable for raising goats and long-wool meat sheep in the high-humid and hot areas in the south.
4、 Sensitive sense of smell
Sheep's sense of smell is more sensitive than sight and hearing. This is related to its developed glands, and its specific functions are shown in the following three aspects.
(1) Identify lambs
After a lamb is born, the ewe will be able to identify its own lamb by smell after contact with the ewe for a few minutes. When a lamb sucks, the ewe always sniffs its rump and tail first to identify whether it is her own lamb. This can be used to foster the lamb in production, that is, apply the amniotic fluid or urine of the babysitter on the body of the orphaned and multiparous lambs in foster care, and foster care will be successful.
(2) Distinguish plants
When sheep feed, they can carefully distinguish different plants or different varieties (strains) of the same plant according to the smell and appearance of the plant, and choose the forage with more protein, less crude fiber and no peculiar smell to feed.
(3) Distinguish between drinking water and cleaning goat farm plastic slatted floor price
Sheep like to drink clean running water, spring water or well water, but refuse to drink sewage and dirty water.
5、 Good at wandering
Traveling helps to increase the feeding space for grazing sheep, especially the sheep in the pastoral area are mainly grazed all the year round. It takes a long journey to eat and drink well. Therefore, the round-trip distance of a day often reaches 6-10km. Goats have a good mechanism for balancing their steps. They like to climb high and jump well. Their feeding range can reach mountains and cliffs. For example, goats can go straight up and down a steep slope of 60 degrees, while sheep need to swim diagonally in a zigzag shape.
Different breeds of sheep have different wandering ability under different forage conditions and pasture conditions. For example, Ramblet sheep travels 25% more distance per day than Hampshire sheep, and Shewett sheep travels 8 km and 9.8 km per day on mountain pastures and plain pastures, respectively, while Romney sheep of the same long-wool species travel 5.1 km and 8.1 km respectively. When the breeding season is approaching and the quality of forage is poor, the wandering distance of sheep increases, and the wandering distance often increases with the grazing time.
6、 Neural activity
Goats are alert, active, and have strong memory. They are easy to train into sheep for special purposes; But sheep are docile, timid and easy to panic, slow to react, and easy to be frightened and appear "fried group". In case of animal damage, the goat can take the initiative to call for advice and has certain resistance ability; However, sheep have no self-defense ability, escape in all directions, and will not unite to resist. Goats like wrestling. There are two forms of wrestling: forward collision and jumping oblique collision. Therefore, there is a saying of "refined goat, tired sheep".
7、 Adaptability
Adaptability is a complex character composed of many characters, mainly including the performance of rough tolerance, thirst resistance, heat resistance, cold resistance, disease resistance, disaster resistance and famine relief. The strength of these abilities is not only directly related to the development of sheep productivity, but also determines the development fate of various breeds. For example, in dry, early and poor mountainous areas, desert areas and some high temperature and humidity areas, sheep are often difficult to survive, while goats can adapt well.
(1) Coarse resistance
Sheep have incredible survival ability under extremely bad conditions and can rely on crude straw and leaves to maintain their lives. Compared with sheep, goats are more tolerant to coarse fiber. In addition to eating all kinds of weeds, they can also chew a certain amount of grass roots and bark. The digestibility of coarse fiber is 3.7% higher than that of sheep.
(2) Thirst resistance
Sheep has strong thirst resistance, especially when there is water shortage in summer and autumn, he can move quickly along the pasture at dawn, and touch the grass with his lips and tongue to collect dew condensation on the leaves. Grazing in the pasture where wild onions, wild leeks, wild lilies, Oxytropis big-leaf and other pastures are widely distributed, you can not drink water for several days or even more than ten days. However, in comparison, goats are more thirsty. Goats need 188ml of water per kilogram of body weight, while sheep need 197ml of water.
(3) Heat resistance
Because wool has the function of heat insulation, it can prevent the rapid transfer of solar radiation heat to the skin, so it is more heat-resistant. Sheep sweat glands are not developed, evaporation and heat dissipation mainly depend on respiration, and their heat resistance is worse than that of goats. Therefore, when it is hot at noon in summer, they often stop eating, pant and "burrow"; However, the goats never participate in the bunting and continue to eat when the temperature is 37.8 ℃. Compared with fine wool sheep, coarse wool sheep is more heat-resistant, and only when the temperature is higher than 26 ℃ at noon can they start to make a nest; The latter shows this behavior at about 22 ℃.
(4) Endurance
Sheep can reduce body heat emission due to its thick and dense coat and more subcutaneous fat, so its cold tolerance is higher than that of goats. Although the coat of fine wool sheep and its hybrids is thick, the skin plate is thin, so its cold resistance is not as good as that of coarse wool sheep; Long-wool mutton sheep originated in the warm areas of Britain, with thin skin and thin hair, which attract people in the harsh climate. In order to enhance the cold resistance, the skin often thickens, and the coat tends to become denser and shorter.
(5) Disease resistance
All kinds of sheep under grazing conditions, as long as they can eat and drink enough, generally have fewer diseases throughout the year. During the fat and fat period in summer and autumn, they have a strong tolerance to disease and generally do not show symptoms. Some of them are reluctant to eat grass and follow the herd when they are dying. In order to achieve early treatment, careful observation is necessary to find out in time. The disease resistance of goat is stronger than that of sheep, and the number of infected with endoparasite and foot rot is also less. The disease resistance of coarse wool sheep is stronger than that of fine wool sheep and its hybrids.
(6) Famine relief capability
It refers to the endurance of sheep to poor feed conditions. Its strength is not only related to grazing and feeding ability, but also determined by fat deposition ability and metabolic intensity. Different kinds of sheep have different disaster resistance, so the proportion of death due to disasters varies greatly. For example, goats are stronger than sheep in their ability to resist disasters and famine because of their small food intake and miscellaneous food habits; Fine wool sheep need a lot of nutrition for wool growth, and because of the heavy load of wool, it is easy to be lean, and its loss ratio is significantly larger than that of coarse wool sheep; Rams are aggressive and have a strong dissimilation effect. They consume a lot of physical energy during the breeding period. If there is no supplementary feeding condition, the proportion of loss will be greater than that of ewes, especially when they are bred.
