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Silly rabbit, herding sheep is for dogs, not herbivores.
Via io9
How
do you tout the benefits of your fancy-schmancy lawn mower? Lawn mower
maker Jacoben turned to advertising icon Stan Freberg to create (now classic)
ad campaign.
Stan's answer? Compare it to a sheep. The Presurfer has the video clip: Link
The sheep. They’re coming for you.
-via Geekosystem
Champis is a dwarf rabbit in Sweden who think he’s a sheepdog! He belongs to Nils-Erik and Greta who have a farm near the village of Käl. That’s about all I can get from the Swedish, but you can read more at Gårdsbacken’s blog. Link -via Metafilter
This is a sport that has no place for the sheepish among you. You’ve got to be tough, fast, and precise with the clippers. That’s why shearing is a competitive event in New Zealand, and some people there want the Olympic Games to host it as a demonstration sport:
Maxwell said men’s and women’s world record-holders, Ivan Scott of Ireland and Kerri-Jo Te Huia of New Zealand, showed the athleticism necessary to reach the top of world shearing.
“Ivan regained his world eight-hour solo lamb title by shearing 749 lambs, seven more than the previous world record,” she said.
“Kerri-Jo smashed the women’s eight-hour solo lamb shearing world record by shearing 507 lambs, 37 more than the previous record.”
To be accepted on the Olympic program, a sport first must be recognized by the International Olympic Committee by being widely practiced around the world and administered by an international federation that ensures that the sport’s activities follow the Olympic Charter.
Link -via MetaFilter | Photo: Flickr user NatalieMaynor
What happens when you take a baby sheep and raise him with your springer spaniel? He might just think he’s a dog, that’s what. Jack fetches sticks, walks on a leash and even tries to baaa-rk.
Firefighters in Bridgend, Wales, were called to a home in Pontycymer because a sheep had been spotted walking around on the roof. A fireman at the scene said,
“We have never had anything like that before, though we have found sheep in some difficult places.
“It was running back and forward on the roof, but eventually it must have realised how many firefighters were there trying to get it down and thought, I’d better come down now, I think.
The sheep was absolutely fine and not harmed at all, and it was certainly an interesting call-out, it’s not where you’d expect to find a sheep, really quite funny.
“It brightened up our weekend, that’s for sure.”
The sheep was back on the ground about 40 minutes after the fire crew arrived. Link -via Arbroath
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(YouTube link)
Cyriak Harris has a new animation, about sheep. They multiply. He calls it “Experiments in ovine geometry.” -via Boing Boing
Previously: More of Cyriak’s work.
Tired of rustlers stealing his flock of sheep, English farmer John Heard decided to … dye his sheep orange!
The 48-year-old has put his flock of 250 blackface ewes through a harmless dip of orange dye making them so highly visible wary thieves are giving them a wide berth.
Mr Heard, who runs his livestock farm near Okehampton, Devon had lost 200 sheep over the past few years but says the orange dye is working wonders.He explained:"Sheep rustling has become a big problem with ewes worth around £140 each. My flock roams Dartmoor and I was getting mighty fed-up with losing so many.
"My son James suggested the orange dye and although it produces some strange looking sheep it has done the trick and I haven’t lost one this year.
"It works because they are so easy to distinguish making it easier for me and my neighbours to keep a wary eye out for them. Plus the rustlers are obviously nervouse about stealing such easily distinguished animals."
Link (Photo: Stuart Clarke)
Counting Sheep – Glow in the Dark – $29.95
Can’t sleep? Well, you can try counting sheep … which is a lot easier if you can actually see ‘em in the dark. Well, these "Counting Sheep" figurines from the NeatoShop, designed by Diana Paisis may help: they are made from glow-in-the-dark material! Perfect for temporary night lights.
Link
| See also: Invaders Invade | Fun & unusual Night Lights
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These sure don’t look like your boring ol’ traffic cones! The Municipality of Gland, Switzerland commissioned Christophe Machet to create a set of reflective sheep that somehow "got lost" in the city streets, thus forcing drivers to slow down.
Say what you will, but these Traffic Sheep are great at baaaaa-rricading the streets!
This video shows a man in Turkey jumping out of a motorcycle’s sidecar and onto a moving truck. He steals one of the sheep in the back. What do you think: real or staged?
via Nerdcore
Shaun the Sheep stars in a cute physics game in which you guide the sheep home. You have obstacles to cross, and three sheep of different mass. While you figure out a strategy, enjoy the artwork and sound effects. Link -via Metafilter
Most printed books come in certain standard sizes which have been used for hundreds of years. Even the dimensions of Kindles and other eReaders are derived from these norms of printing. And where did these standards come from? According to medieval scholar Carl Pyrdum, they’re based on the size of a sheep:
The question then becomes, I guess, why were medieval books the size they were? And the answer to that is simple: medieval books were the size they were because medieval sheep were the size they were. Remember, paper wasn’t the original medium for page-creation. Medieval books were constructed of parchment, which is a fancy word for sheep or goat skin (and primarily sheep skin, because there were a lot more of them around).
The whole sheepskin, flattened out and folded in half, is one common size. Fold it again, and it’s another size. All of these sizes and dimensions are still being used by printing houses in the 21st century. The Kindle, for example, is the size of a sheepskin folded over three times. Pyrdum provides further examples and concludes:
Next time you’re squinting at your mass-market copy of Dan Brown’s latest wishing the pages were just a smidge roomier, blame the medievals for not having bigger sheep.
Link via Wired | Photo by Flickr user David Masters used under Creative Commons license
The movie set that was once the Shire in The Lord of The Rings trilogy, has since been taken over by sheep. Although still a tourist attraction, those visiting the former Hobbit homes in New Zealand must take precaution of the new residents.
Link – via laughingsquid
(Image credit: Flickr user Tara Hunt)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Sixteen percent of Australia’s greenhouse emissions come from agriculture, so scientists there are busy trying to solve the problem of … burping sheep?
"Ninety per cent of the methane that sheep and cattle and goats produce comes from the rumen, and that’s burped out," John Goopy from the New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment told ABC.
"Not much goes behind – that’s horses."
The scientists in New South Wales have been conducting experiments in specially designed pens where they measure how much gas sheep emit by burping. They have found, from tests on 200 sheep so far, that the more they eat, the more they belch.
The scientists’ goal is to breed sheep that burp less: Link
Check out this awesome DIY art using sheep and LEDs. Watch as the sheep make wonderful array of geometric lines on the field in the dark.
– via zedomax
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by zedomax.
No sheepdog? No problem! This Chinese shepherd found that he could control his flock of sheep with a poster of a wolf!
Du Hebing, of Xi’an, told Huashang Daily that he shot the picture by chance.
"After visiting Qinling Wild Animal Park, on the way home I saw a group of sheep walking along the road with a man holding a picture following behind them," he said.
Du said he burst out laughing when he realised it was a picture of a wolf. "The man was using the wolf picture to scare the sheep and drive them ahead – it was a really funny scene," he said.
Link (Photo: Du Hebing)
