Counting Sheep
by LeeAnn McLaneGoetz McLaneGoetzStudioLLCcom
Title
Counting Sheep
Artist
LeeAnn McLaneGoetz McLaneGoetzStudioLLCcom
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Counting Sheep
The Farm 4285 State Highway 57, Sturgeon Bay, WI (920) 743-6666
The Farm in beautiful Door County, is a special place.
A quote about The Farm in the Reader's Digest book, Off the Beaten Path says it best:
"Children and adults as well, are likely to be charmed, entertained and educated."
The Farm is a delight for people of all ages. As a living museum of rural America, it is a blending of cultural, historical, agricultural, ecological, recreational and educational values. Every year, The Farm virtually explodes with newborn and new-hatched creatures. Goat kids, piglets, foals, calves and lambs are born throughout the season; chicks hatch everyday in the observation incubator.
Uploaded
October 18th, 2011
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Comments (1)
LeeAnn McLane-Goetz
Sheep are exclusively herbivorous mammals. Most breeds prefer to graze on grass and other short roughage, avoiding the taller woody parts of plants that goats readily consume. Both sheep and goats use their lips and tongues to select parts of the plant that are easier to digest or higher in nutrition. Sheep, however, graze well in monoculture pastures where most goats fare poorly. Like all ruminants, sheep have a complex digestive system composed of four chambers, allowing them to break down cellulose from stems, leaves, and seed hulls into simpler carbohydrates. When sheep graze, vegetation is chewed into a mass called a bolus, which is then passed into the first chamber: the rumen. The rumen is a (5 to 10 gal) organ in which feed is fermented via a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria, protozoa, and yeasts of the gut flora.The bolus is periodically regurgitated back to the mouth as cud for additional chewing and salivation.Cud chewing is an adaptation allowing ruminants to graze more quickly in the morning, and then fully chew and digest feed later in the day.This is safer than grazing, which requires lowering the head thus leaving the animal vulnerable to predators, while cud chewing does not.