While feeding your sheep, you can scratch them under their chins or on their necks. By feeding them directly, you will strengthen the bond between you and the sheep, while also helping them to bolster the connection between you and food! Once the sheep seem relatively comfortable with you, you can begin feeding them out of your hands. This will further strengthen the connection between you and the food in your sheep’s mind. Next, when they actually approach you for feeding, you can hold the bucket in your hands or place it on the ground next to you. This will create an association in the sheep’s mind between you calling them and food, which is a good thing. For example, at feeding times, you can rattle their bucket of food and simultaneously call them to you. Next, depending on how skittish your sheep are at first, you’ll want to start by creating an association between yourself and their food. Basically, it will force your sheep to be close to you! Using Food as a Reward When Training Sheep This will make it harder for them to run away from you and, thus, easier to corral. To start off, you’ll want to keep your sheep in a smaller pen when approaching them early on. This is where the whole “being patient” part can be key. Some sheep can be skittish and nervous around humans at first, so it’s important to slowly ease them into human contact. Given that you will be the one training your flock of sheep, it’s important that the sheep are comfortable around you before you begin. Training Sheep To Be Comfortable Around You
Though, unlike the saying, you can train older sheep, it will be a much longer, harder process than if you had trained the sheep as a lamb. Just like the saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, these same rules apply to sheep. Lastly, as with most animals, it’s easiest to train sheep when they are young and impressionable. This will help to create an association between petting and treats, which, in turn, motivates them to be pet because they know they will get treats for it. Motivational training is the act of rewarding an animal for following your command or completing the action that you requested of them.įor example, giving a sheep a treat when they allow you to pet them without protest. Now, this isn’t the best way to train your sheep for a few reasons, but the biggest is that they respond much better to motivational sheep training techniques than other training methods. When they follow your command, the collar is turned off and they are released from the adverse effect that they’ve been subject to. In dogs, this could be an electric collar that’s turned on until the dog follows your command to sit. Negative reinforcement training is when you take away an unpleasant effect when the animal in question accomplishes what you want them to. Sheep respond best to something called motivational training, instead of negative reinforcement training. Once you have a goal in mind, it’s time to develop a plan of action. Do you want them to become more comfortable around humans? Do you want them to be able to wear a halter with no issues? Do you simply want them to come when you call?Īll of these tasks can be easily accomplished with the proper training techniques. Basic Principles of Sheep Taming and Trainingīefore you begin to create a plan for training your sheep, you have to think about your goals for the training. These associations will help them learn to perform repetitive behaviors for treats and food, thus “training” them! Most important is to be calm, collected, and patient, as training your sheep can be an arduous task that requires a lot of repetition in order for them to fully understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Repetition is the number one tool that you can employ to help your sheep create associations between actions and rewards. The first is that it’s necessary to have patience and be repetitive with your training. There are a few important things to remember when training sheep. So, you may be wondering, how do I train my sheep to be comfortable around me? In other words, how do I tame my flock of sheep? Some can be skittish or nervous around humans from the get-go. However, not all sheep are born with a human-friendly demeanor. Sheep can be calm, loving, and docile animals to keep on your farm.
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