Sheep Shearing/Goat Milking

• Sheep and goats produce lots of everyday things that you might not realize.


• Goat hair and sheep’s wool are used to make clothing, blankets, and even carpet. The process of getting wool off the sheep is called shearing.


• Goats and sheep also provide us with milk and cheese. Outside the United States, goat milk is more popular than cow milk. The milk from goats is often used for other animal babies, like foals, piglets, and even human babies.


• A female goat is called a doe; her young is called a kid. A female sheep is called a ewe, and her young is called a lamb.


• Sheep meat is a good source of nutrients. Lamb meat comes from a sheep less than 1 year old; mutton is meat from a sheep older than 1 year old. New Zealand is the country that uses sheep for meat the most.


• There are 914 different types of sheep and about 100 types of goats!


• It is not true that goats eat cans. They do eat the paper off the cans because they think it tastes good. Goats are browsers, which means that they like to eat leaves, twigs, vines, and shrubs. Sheep are grazers, which means they eat grass, clover, weeds, and other pasture plants. Sheep especially love to eat "weeds."


• How do you tell the difference between a goat and a sheep? The easiest way is to look at their tails. Sheep tails hang down and are often docked (cut off) for health and sanitary reasons. A goat's tail will go up (unless the goat is frightened, sick, or in distress).