"American Dream"
Click to watch the video

Click to watch the sheep training video

The sheep came from a small farm in California. We had to find sheep that were not already shorn and it was shearing time in the area that we were working.  The next  step was to halter break the whole herd (14 sheep) and from there we picked out our hero's.  The sheep responded quickly to positive reinforcement through food rewards.

The sheep are now breeding fat lambs at the ranch.  Its amazing how well they respond to their training cues after a year has gone by.

Training sheep was a new challenge for the Turtle Ranch - Sheep are herd animals and like to stick together so training the "streaker" sheep to leave the safety of the herd and run out onto the field was both challenging and rewarding. We had 3 "streaker" sheep that ran from the herd and were also trained to rear up and bow.