From The Guardian: All anxious sheep want is a picture of ewe.
Posted on August 24, 2004 10:50 PM. Filed under: animals, insects, etc.And now, the new way to soothe an anxious sheep: show it a picture of another sheep. Scientists at the Babraham Institute near Cambridge believe that - like humans - Southdowns, Romneys, and Cheviots need to see a familiar face when they are alone.
The researchers put sheep into a darkened barn on their own and projected life-sized images of sheep, goats and symbolic faces, on a screen. They measured stress levels by recording heart rate, restlessness and the number of times a sheep bleated. They also tested levels of cortisol and adrenaline - chemical indicators of stress - in blood samples. Goats and triangle shapes did nothing for the fretful Ovis aries, but once shown faces of other sheep, the anxious captives seemed to calm down. [continue]