Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 216
Sheep
Hello Everyone
Have you ever been to an agricultural show and noticed that the goats like to come to the front of their pens to see you and are quite friendly, whereas the sheep are shy and stand at the back of their pens?
Sheep and goats seem to have different personalities!
Farmer Jenkins keeps sheep. He has lots of sheep on his farm.
Every spring they have their woolly coats shorn off. This coat is called a fleece. This wool is sold to make Farmer Jenkins money.
Wool can be used to knit jumpers, gloves or socks, woven into cloth or used to make carpets. Nowadays, it can be made into filling for duvets and insulation for houses – that means it is put into the walls to help keep heat inside the house.
The sheep will grow another fleece over the summer so that they will be nice and warm again when the cold, winter weather returns.
Farmer Jenkins has a few goats as well. The goats give him milk that he sells for money.
The easiest way for you to tell a sheep from a goat is to look at their tail. Sheep have tails that hang down and goats have tails that stick up.
Sheep are grazers, that means they eat grass and goats are browsers, (no, not on the lnternet), which means they eat the tops of plants and just about anything they can reach including the clothes of anyone who gets too close! Goats are good at climbing and standing on their hind legs so that they can reach up to nibble at leaves and twigs.
Sheep have been domesticated for over 10,000 years and in all that time many different breeds have been developed by farmers. There are now over 200 breeds of sheep.
Sheep are one of the easiest farm animals to look after. They can be kept in places where no crops can be grown or cows could live happily. They can eat short grass on hillsides and survive in harsh weather.
ln fact, they are really designed to live on rocky outcrops which means that when they live on soft lowland pasture their feet don’t get worn down and farmers have to trim their feet. lt is a bit like you cutting your toe nails.
Sheep are found all over the world. Sheep from lceland and Scotland produce wool for jumpers that is especially good at keeping out the wind.
Britain and Spain were once the largest wool producers. ln Britain we still have about 30 million sheep and roughly a third of those are in Wales.
Before the lndustrial Revolution, Britain’s wealth was built on wool production. ln Tudor Times, woollen cloth made up 75% of England’s exports. Today, the ‘Woolsack’ is the seat of Lord Speaker in the House of Lords, in the Houses of Parliament. ln the 14th century, King Edward lll decreed that his Lord Chancellor should sit on a wool bale when he was holding meetings. The Woolsack was supposed to symbolize the huge importance of the wool trade to England at the time.
Australia is probably the country that produces the most wool today. There are huge sheep farms there. A breed called the Merino is very popular there. New Zealand and China also produce a lot of wool too.
A male sheep is called a ram, a female is called a ewe (pronounced yoo) and a baby under a year old is called a lamb. A group of sheep is called a flock, but a really big flock can be called a mob or band.
Sheep are very social animals and live in large groups because it is safer for them to live like that. They have a tendency to follow each other and keep in a tight group and can get quite distressed if they are split off from the flock.
Scientists have been studying sheep to see how intelligent they are and have been surprised to find that they can be as intelligent as rats and monkeys who have been given puzzles to solve. They recognise humans that they have seen before and other sheep that they have made friends with too. Their face recognition skills are comparable to monkeys and humans.
Farmer Jenkins has fences around his fields. He doesn’t want his sheep escaping and running down the road.
But it was reported that sheep on the Yorkshire Moors had learnt to roll over cattle grids so that they could escape from their farms and go to find tasty things to eat in the gardens of the nearby villagers.
Naughty sheep!
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And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: What do you call a shy sheep?
Bill: l don’t know. What do you call a shy sheep?
Bob: Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashful!
Bill: Baa ha ha!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Sheep grazing
Goats have perky tails
Baby goats are called kids
Goats are good at climbing
Look where these goats have climbed to!
Icelandic sheep with thick coats
House of Lords Chamber
Merino sheep
A cattle grid is designed so that animals cannot walk across it but humans can
Cattlegrids.com
A baby sheep is called a lamb
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
When it is nice weather, we like to go for a nice long walk in the countryside. It is important to keep to the footpaths and close gates behind you if you go through any. You don’t want any animals to escape from their field and get onto the road. If you take a dog with you, don’t let them off the lead so that they can run away and upset any animals – either farm or wild.
And if the weather is bad, we like to keep cosy indoors.
Bill and Bob are improving their Scrabble skills all the time and this week, I am happy to tell you, Bill and Bob managed to beat Auntie Alice at Scrabble at last which spurred them on to learn more words – some of them quite obscure – for even greater victories…
- Zephyr – gentle breeze
- Zither – a musical instrument
- Wry – crooked
- Wey – measurement of weight of wool/weight/cheese
- Wax – material to make candles
- Vat – large vessel
- Tyre – rubber around a wheel
- Sty – pig’s house
- Sic – thus/it is so
- Scye – a curve in a piece of garment to receive a sleeve
- Rye – a type of grass
- Quip – a severe retort
- Quay – a built landing place for ships
- Quarry – a place where stones are dug out
- Quart – a quarter of a gallon
- Qua – as being
- Pyx – a vessel in the Roman Catholic Church
- Praxis – discipline/practice
- Ply – to work at
- Pap – soft food for infants
- Oyer – a court
- Onyx – a semi-precious gem
- Nexus – connection
- Nab – to catch
- Maw – stomach
- Mazy – winding/intricate
- Jib – a sail
- Ire – anger
- Idyl – a type of poem
- Ibex – a member of the goat family
- Hyson – a Chinese green tea
- Hoax – a practical joke
- Gyp – a college servant at Cambridge University
- Fuzzy – covered with fuzz
- Foxy – like a fox
- Exhale – breathe out
- Ewer – a water jug
- Err – to wander/stray
- Eke – to lengthen/add to
- Eft – a newt
- Dyke – a ditch
- Dew – moisture in the air that condenses when it touches a cold surface such as grass
- Daze – to stun
- Czar – Russian royalty
- Crave – strong desire
- Cive – a small species of leek
- Caw – cry like a crow
- Calyx – the cup of a flower
- Bawl – to shout
- Aye – always
- Awry – twisted
- Awl – a piercing tool
- Avow – to declare
- Aft – astern on a ship
- Ado – difficulty
See how many you can remember…
Zither
Onyx can be different colours
An awl
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Quick Quiz
What do the following words and expressions mean?
- To tell the sheep from the goats
- To pull the wool over someone’s eyes
- Counting sheep
- Following like sheep
- The black sheep of the family
- To be sheepish
- A sheep run
- A fleece
- lanolin
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A LlTTLE KNlTTED BASKET
Of course, I couldn’t have a blog post about sheep without a knitting pattern, so here is one for a tiny knitted basket.
You could keep rings in it or tiny things like thimbles.
CANDY STRIPED KNITTED BASKET (BASE KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 150 stitches
Cast off
Leave a long length of yarn for sewing up
CANDY STRIPED KNITTED BASKET (INNER SIDES KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 7 stitches
Knit 80 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
CANDY STRIPED KNITTED BASKET (OUTER SIDES KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 50 stitches
Change to pink
Knit 2 rows
Change to white
Knit 2 rows
Change to pink
Knit 2 rows
Change to white
Knit 2 rows
Change to pink
Knit 2 rows
Change to white
Knit 2 rows
Change to pink
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
- Curl the base up in a spiral and sew together making sure it is firm and tight – keep pushing your yarn needle through the spiral backwards and forwards
- Sew the side seam of the inner sides together and then sew to the base
- Sew the side seam of the outer sides together and then sew to the base (with the seams on opposite sides to reduce bulk)
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- To tell the sheep from the goats – to separate things or people of quality out from a group of things or people who are mixed quality
- To pull the wool over someone’s eyes – to fool them
- Counting sheep – counting sheep in one’s imagination in order to get to sleep
- Following like sheep – following other people without making your own decisions
- The black sheep of the family – the worst member of the family
- To be sheepish – to be foolish, bashful, over modest
- A sheep run – a large tract of land for grazing sheep
- A fleece – the wool shorn from one sheep
- lanolin – the grease produced by the skin of a wool bearing animal to protect it from wet weather – lanolin is used in cosmetics and toiletries for humans because it helps to soften and protect skin
lanolin
A rare breed of pig that has a fleece too
