"A few hours more and it would've died". Damn. I didn't know it was this serious. When I was 19, me and my friends were at a party and a bit drunk, we went out and crossed a farm. It felt bad since we were trespassing, but then we saw this sheep that was laying on its back. We were thinking of knocking on the owner's door, but were afraid of getting yelled at (we were drunk, and trespassing), but we felt so bad for this sheep that was simply laying on its back so we turned it over. I guess we saved its life.
@harryl7946 They have different backs than sheep, especially when sheep haven't been shorn. Sheep can't just roll over all the time... as this shows, obviously. You mean your dog copied the horses & cattle/cows? 😄
I have sheep, and it's never been an issue with mine in 5 years of raising them. It's also not something that needs a video because all the other parts of raising them teach you plenty about how to handle them that this sort of thing is so basic.
Same! I thought that surely this video would explain how this is normal sheep behavior or some such -- glad I actually watched it instead of running with my assumptions!
@@NithinJunewe have made their species dependant on us for shearing. If you don't shear them they will become too overburdened to move or die of the struggle.
As a man in the city with no wild or farm sheep anywhere to be found near me, I will take this knowledge and guard it incase one day it becomes useful.
Thanks for the information. I've spent over 65 years hiking around the countryside in the UK but I've never come across this situation. It's good to know this trick anyway. I'm 81 years old so you are probably more likely to find me lying face first on the ground. If you do, my mobile phone will be in my backpack and my home number is shown under the directory as "Home". My widow will answer the phone. Break it to her gently. Thanks.
They're domesticated animals genetically manipulated for thousands of years to prioritise wool and meat. Lost of other things had to fall by the wayside.
@@dieletztekavallerie395Their wild ancestors would have survived if humans did not. I am not a vegan or tree hugger, some fact I have to reassure the foolish with, but if you were not trolling then you have very little understanding of how things worked and what was overhunting certain wild ancestors. And btw, what "us" or "we?" That is a flaw of the majority, claiming successes you had nothing to do with. If you invent something or write a book, do I get to claim that? No. So, ask yourself, have you truly DONE anything to differentiate yourself from any cud chewing animal? Besides consume and contributing to the industrialisation destroying most our species? I mean a few will be fine but billions are doomed.
@@az_street_walker4181 Sorry but that ironic response is so overused and lame we need to come up with a new word to even remotely try to grasp how much so
@@Folfah I am not sure "human" is such a great thing. The ONLY breed that cramped my style in life was so called "human". Human can Kill. Rob. rape, destroy, shoot, kidnap, ect ect.... Walking talking rectums are the worst creatures that walk planet earth
I remember my dad telling me about how difficult it was to raise sheep. "They can't wait to die" is how he put it - anything and everything you did with them was, apparently, incredibly traumatic for sheep to experience. Even moving them to a new pasture frequently ended up with some of them just dying for no reason.
That’s true. They’re highly sensitive to certain traumas. If something hits them in the wrong spot it can be fatal in a very surprising way. The sheep will stand still for a little while and then it’s over. But that particular individual looks unhealthy in general, structurally unsound. For example, it doesn’t appear capable of butting heads with another sheep.
Sheep are exactly as friendly as they look like. When I was a teenager, my uncle had 2 lovely sheep ladies, right next to our garden. I sometimes climbed over the fence, lay with them in the grass or under a tree, sometimes played "head push" (we pushed our head onto each other and looked who was stronger). They really gave me wonderful afternoons.
i once visited a sheep herder, and saw something like this with a sheep rolling over and then being stuck the dog actually came running over, and managed to gently and carefully push the sheep back up in less then 5 minutes it was quite a show for my younger self, and now that i realise the severity of the problems it can cause my respect for that dog has gone up by a lot
There are plenty of videos of this. The dog is actually a perfect tool. You help the sheep get upright and a well trained dog will wait for the sheep to show some strength, then charge the sheep so it gets a surge of adrenaline and pops right up.
Hi, you saved a sheep today! RU-vid showed me this video six months ago. On our morning walk today, my wife spotted an upside-down sheep on a hill. If I hadn't watched this video, we would have just laughed and carried on. We asked at a nearby house for information and was given a phone number. My wife left a message saying we would enter the field and try to flip it over. The coolest thing happened when we approached the sheep: It stretched its front leg out towards us as if it knew the procedure! It was a lot easier to roll over than I expected and the sheep got up and walked off.
I can't believe how chilled out and relaxed the sheep looked stuck in that predicament while you spoke about the possibility of it dying, this is the best
Likely shock from stress, not calmness. It likely had been struggling for a while trying to get back up, which also means its exhausted. Animals in life threatening situations go into shock pretty easily. Its real important to know calm from shock, as it applies to humans too. If youre looking for an easy way to tell the difference, check the facial expression and check the muscles. If theyre tightened and still, shock is more likely. If theyre relaxed and moving regularly, calmness is more likely. The sheep here is tense and has an expression like its passed out, so shock is most likely.
Me too. Got stuck on my back the other day. Upright now though! Isn't that life! Sometimes you gotta pick yourself up and when you can't do it alone, ask for help! 🐑✨️ Bahh 🤍
Now when you come out of the pub tonight, please walk slowly. Lean against fences if you must, but make sure you don’t turn on your back. No more funky business!
A sheep herd is actually quite a complex social network. Lambs remember their mothers and figure out their grandparents. That other ewe was likely it's mother or daughter.
There's an old quote: "Sheep are born trying to die; it is a good shepherd's job to try and stop them." I think some of the happiest times in my life were sleeping out in the lambing barn with my flock. 250 ewes, and they all lambed inside of three weeks.
@@talyrath And, yet, some of my happiest memories are of being in the lambing barn on cold Spring nights, getting ewes and their new lambs separated out and penned up. I really loved my years as a shepherd.
This video is another piece of evidence that nature created these things for being food for other animals. How they have survived without human protection in the wild is beyond me.
@@Bullshitvol2 They mostly didn't. Nature didn't make sheep, human beings did. Domestic sheep were bred from some variant of wild goat. Wild goats are badasses that can eat most anything with cellulose in it, walk up nearly vertical walls, and murder you with their heads. Sheep... are like chihuahuas. Chihuahuas came from wolves, but that was so long ago that they have no ability to survive without a human taking care of them. If a sheep escapes and manages to survive on its own long enough, its fleece will get so heavy that it'll literally tear its skin off.
This was important information: If I had happened to see a sheep on its back, I would have laughed and moved on: I wouldn't have realised that the sheep was in distress, instead assuming it was like a relaxed cat or dog, and can roll over any time it wants. Also thank you for showing what to do, in case someone finds a sheep in this situation.👍
This is why shepherds are important, both human and canine. Humans have bred sheep to have such heavy wool coats, that when they attempt to roll, they cannot right themselves.
Hi. Shepherd from New Zealand. Sheep in NZ are not used to be handled regularly or people, in some cases on remote stations, rarely seen. When you’ve righted the sheep she will often take off, trying to run, scared. Because the blood has drained to the back area her weight is often unbalanced and in trying to run, will stagger and fall and flip onto her back again. We recommend when getting her into the standing position to hold her. The easiest way is between your legs, hands on her shoulders. No jokes please, this is serious. Hold her for a few minutes to allow the blood to recirculate before letting her go.
As others have said, the diagnosis is 100% correct, but the cure is only 50% so. You don't want to roll over a sheep that's been laying on it's back, because you can twist up it's insides. You want to come up behind the sheep's head (don't worry, it won't bite you) and pick it up by the shoulders and try to push it up so the weight's resting on it's butt. Let it sit there for a minute then push it over onto it's front feet. It may be unsteady but the risk of fatal gastric volvus is much lower.
@@oktayyildirim2911 Probably a typo or just a mistake. It's clear they have the mastery over the English language to know the difference between "it's" and "its".
My dad jumped out of the car on a family trip to do this when I was young. He's now 83 and I am 60 yrs. I wasn't even a teen but I remember him doing this. I've kept a lookout for upside-down sheep ever since 👀
Matthew 18 12What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Jesus loves you John 3 16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and onlye Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 18Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. Jesus is the good Shepherd he will go seek the 1 lost sheep even if he have 99
I've never seen this but when I was about ten I was walking with my cousins and I spotted a sheep stuck under a hedge in the snow. We tried to pull it out but couldn't so they went to get the farmer who came with a little tractor and pulled it out. I was crying but they told me I'd saved it's life. That was about 45 years ago. I'll never forget the day I saved a sheep. ☺️
I liked seeing how concerned the sheeps friend was. It stood by, kept watch and stayed with its buddy through the whole ordeal. Who says animals don’t have feelings!
O, animals have feelings. When my sister had a cancer and was having pains on her back, her pat started sleeping right behind her. And when my sister died, he was so sad. He walked crawling. He wouldn't bark, he made some quiet, sad noice here and there, watching us helplessly as if he understood the situation. I never forgot that.
We had a sheep stuck on it's back recently. Another sheep was laying against it, potentially being the one that pushed it onto it's back. :) It was OK. We're fortunate to have the land next to the house to keep them so it was spotted and righted close enough to it flipping that it didn't even stagger slightly once the right way up again. I love seeing them jumping for joy when I come in with some meal for them every day. They will come jumping and skipping from half way across the field without me even needing to call them now.
Thanks for sharing this knowledge. Otherwise normal people like me would have never thought they gonna die this way. I'll be helping sheeps in future if I see one.
It's why farmers are generally very religious. You are literally the hand of God on your animals lives. You celebrate when they are born, care for their needs while they live, and you decide when they will die.
My husband and I were walking in Northumberland 🇬🇧 when we spotted a sheep with its head totally stuck in a fence. It was jammed in. My husband bent the fence back and luckily the sheep got out. Might I add he only bent it a couple of inches so no other sheep could escape . It’s lovely to see a human caring for an animal and not getting his phone out to record the incident and take all the praise on social media!! Ps Thank you to all you farmers world wide helping to feed nations. ❤
I don't know what it is about sheep but they never fail to make me laugh and put a smile on my face. Their shape, their facial expressions, their sounds, the way they walk - just everything about them is funny and precious. Great animals
WARNING. Never turn a sheep back via its side. By turning it sideways, the animal can get a stomach tilt and the sheep can still die from that. Try to put the sheep on its butt by grabbing it by its armpits (note some sheep weigh up to 60 kilos, you really have to do that in pairs). Then let the sheep sit for a while, the sheep will then get oxygen again and the sheep will feel a bit stronger again. If the sheep is on all 4 legs again, it will swing for a while when walking, keep an eye on it so that the animal does not fall into a ditch. If a sheep is helped in time, it will be grazing in the meadow again within 10 minutes.
Once I and a friend cycled through Ireland and found a ram tangled in barbwire and brambles. It was an absolute mess. We were not dressed for the occasion, and had nothing with us, not even a knife. We struggled for half an hour, and I still don't know how, but we managed to free the animal. Of course we were scratched and bruised all over, but what a good feeling it was.
Excellent video for informing the general public on this crucial livestock welfare issue. As a sheep farmer, to anyone who watches this, if you see this occur whilst you are out walking, PLEASE do try and intervene, even if your presence drives the ewe’s lambs away from her or not. Don’t worry about this, they will return to her in due course. However, If the ewe is in, what looks like a dedicated lambing field connected directly to the Farmyard, then inform someone present, as first response. As entering a field full of ewes having lambs, can cause mis-mothering problems to occur, whilst it will certainly be the case, that someone will be screening the field continuously each day. On our farm, by far the biggest threat to our Ewes (Especially when Pregnant), when they get stuck on their backs is being attacked by Ravens. These birds are very intelligent and widespread across UK farmland nowadays, whilst they will not wait for the sheep to die, thus often attacking the eyes and stomachs first. It is horrendous for the sheep when this happens. If it is a Ram in trouble or you are not physically capable of intervening yourself, please contact the owner or ask someone else who is passing by. Above all, please use common sense, Thank you!!🐑
When I was young I was told that it was dangerous for sheep to be on their back because they couldn't get up. But it wasn't until today that I learned it was dangerous because it could lead to a heart attack, not just because it was vulnerable and couldn't move. Thanks for the information ❤
So you just posted another NPC comment? You know the great grandson of Charles Darwin described most humans as cattle and described how we will be eliminated when not needed by the elites. Dune also comes to.mind, when Paul Atreides in the novel at least was told he was being tested to see if he is a person or animal: you would be an animal like most humans, not a person though personhood is doled out like human rights.
Found one upside down in a ditch one time. I didn't know what to do but there was a shepherd nearby so I went to let him know. He ended up not knowing a word of english which led to a situation where I was laying on my back with my arms and legs in the air making baaing noises and pointing toward the sheep. He ended up understanding and headed that way with a horse and a rope so I think the sheep was saved.
Thank you so much for this video. On Wednesday my wife spotted a sheep in the field next door, stuck on it's back. I couldn't contact the farmer so searched Google for how to right a sheep and found your upload. It was very easy to get the sheep back up. Thanks again.
Some sheep are capable of getting up on their own, it’s the flat backed or fat sheep that struggle, birds also will peck their eyes out or try and peck into their stomachs.
@@gloriastiehl2905 Crows and ravens gouge out the eyes of newly-born lambs. They cause huge damage to sheep breeders in the UK. So, farmers hire hunters to cull crows.
It's quite horrifying to see the grave consequences of a simple and possibly frequent occurrence like a roll-over. Thank you for sharing this information.
@@_permanence the farmer said it was from being too heavy. So yes, it's because of farming practices -- either fattening them up for more wool area, not shaving them as often for more volume, or selective breeding for greater wool production.
@@thisisforvids That's what I was thinking, this sheep is obviously heavily laden with wool & there's other videos popping up beside this one in my recomended, also with sheep on their backs & also with heavy wool coats. I've never seen a "fat" sheep, I don't believe there's any breeding or management to create that, after sheering, they always look slim, the amount of wool is clearly not natural though is it! Apparently wool on sheep naturally falls out on it's own, but we've selectively breed for it not to, so it builds up & builds up until they are shorn. I've also never heard of this happening where I am, in Australia. Not sure if that's because the sheep are too far away from people & sheep losses to this are just written off with no-one knowing, or if farmers here engage in different practices that do reduce it. I'm suspecting a mix, but mostly the latter, that sheep here are on less lush grass & so probably grow less wool in a year, or are shorn more often if they grow a lot, so as to allow them to be more independent without dying from falling over, or heat stress from carrying so much wool in the outback. I mean if it's happening cause of the amount of wool, then it's clearly easy to prevent isn't it, just sheer more often. Sure, that costs more in sheering costs & possibly reduces income with wool being shorter, but surely it's worth it to keep sheep alive & with good welfare?
The same happens to cows afaik. If they spend too much time on their side/back and get stuck, they can bloat up with gas and die. Typically a vet will come out to let out the gas before they right them up.
About 40yrs ago my mother was driving passed a field and saw a sheep on its back. She stopped and found the farmer who saved the sheep and he was so grateful he gave my mum a tour of his farm.
I’ve lived across the road from a smallholding with maybe 30 sheep, for 8 years,expanding to 45 or so every year and never knew this. Thanks for letting us ignorant non-farmers know.
Imagine in 24 years. You hang out at a meditation, some kid reveals she/he was that sheep during past life. After murmuring it out, does the exact same pose and fur shake.
The farmer put it on its back for the video and deliberately endangered its life and then the sheep will be eventually sent to the slaughterhouse where it will be hung by its legs and have its throat cut off and left to bleed in agony , so now the sheep is not OK and will never be.
I really thought this was a practical joke and the sheep was going to roll over and run away when you approached it. I had no idea they could get stuck like this. Thanks for the new knowledge.
Thank you for your video. I watched it a few months ago and today we saved a struggling sheep on its back. Without the video we wouldn’t have known what to do 👍🏻
The main problem with sheep is that they are suicidal!! They seem to find new ways of getting into situations to kill themselves! Be that lambing on the coldest, wind sweep nights of the year, to getting stuck between trees and hedges. They can even kill themselves in a wide open field, as shown in the video!
My innocent and naive mind thought this was just gonna be a cute video about scratching and rubbing the sheep's belly (like we do with dogs and cats). Instead I learned if a sheep is on its back, it's in danger and should be sat up, then rolled on its feet to save it. (Thanks to the extra input of the comments) Good to know 👌♥️
As someone who uses a lot of footpaths, I've come across a sheep with it's head stuck in a fence before, to be honest it's hard know what to do because you just don't know who's pasture it is. That time I found a local (there was a village about a half mile away) who just happened to know so it worked out. I think it'd be a good idea for farmers to put up signs at the entrances to footpaths that cross pastures so that you can contact them if assistence is needed especialy as those not familiar with how to handle these animals may not want to touch them for fear of hurting them or themselves.
For some strange reason, stock fencing has holes just the right size for trapping the heads of small sheep. When I found a sheep in this predicament a few years ago, I ran to the nearest cottage and came back with a man with stout wire cutters. The sheep was rescued. The good samaritan said he would phone the farmer and let him know why his fence was vandalized!
If all else fails, I would call the local police (google their number, don't use the emergency line), at the very least they can look up who owns that land. Provided you can describe where you are of course... If you can't, they still can contact people whose job it is to know how to help in these situations, even if it's just a guy with a wire cutter 🙂
I came across one with its head stuck in a fence while on a run. I thought it would probably sort itself out, but just in case I decided to come back the same way, and it was still stuck even 2 hours later. So I found the farmer and let him know. He didn't seem to care whatsoever.
@@googleboughtmee Farm animals are just a commodity that's covered by insurance. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was passed last year - 2022 - in the UK. I bet it makes no difference whatsoever to the farm animals suffering exploitation for profit. People are waking up to the true cost of meat production.
We just had one on our farm who was cast last year months ago and died a few weeks later. She was on her side in shallow tractor rut. I drove past her in the morning and Dad did too because she didn't look as if she was cast. When I came back later and she was in the same place, I realised and it was clear that she needed bringing in for care because she couldn't even stand. She did start to recover partly although her lamb needed adopting as she couldn't feed it. Unfortunately though, she was never back to full health and she deteriorated and passed away a few weeks afterward. It might not seem much to us to be stuck on your back but to a sheep it's pretty much a medical emergency.
That's so sad. I'm sorry. Maybe wifi cameras would help for the hard to see areas? Don't know if they'd reach that far, but who knows. Technology keeps advancing so maybe.
@@bigdave9949 why was your first idea to blame them? What do you want them to keep 24/7 security on a sheep? Literally doing nothing else but watching them
@@jojojojojojojojojojojojo4181 When I tended goats in Syria we would stay with the sheep all day and make camp to sleep by then to ensure they were safe. I lost no goats.
@@bigdave9949 Unfortunately there isn't the quantity of personnel on UK farms anymore to make that sort of thing possible. The often lone farmer has to obviously leave each flock of sheep to do all the other chores on the farm, and even when those are done, just travelling between different flock's grazing can be hours in itself, especially for larger flocks where the area of grazing needed isn't as widely available anymore with housing developments and anti-farming schemes claiming more and more land all over the place. Larger fields being used for arable will contribute too, but farmers are being forced to make every acre count as the costs increase but the prices for the products aren't going up to match. All the high yield ground has to be used to make money, as much money as possible just to stay afloat, something that doesn't come from livestock, so the flocks get pushed out to the hilly outskirts ground that isn't as friendly to growing crops on, hence how it takes so long to just visit them to check on them. If farmers let the economic element dictate their choices, they'd give up farming for some office job to get paid ten times as much (no minimum wage in farming) for half or a third or even a quarter of the weekly hours, but then where would the food come from that everyone needs to live? It might seem like a stupid question to ask, but currently the UK government is more concerned about paying farmers to grow something in their fields for 2 years that humans can't eat, something that could pay up to twice as much as growing food, so they seem to want the return of war time rationing without the war element being present to have initiated it. With your experiences outside of the UK, you'll have seen different ways of achieving the 'same job' where minimum wages may not apply to many if any other jobs, but the 'cost of living' (a favourite political slogan here at the moment) will be lower on average than in the UK, and there's likely less political hoops that farmers need to jump through just to sell livestock, etc, which cost money to reach. This isn't to say there aren't challenges everywhere you've worked, it's just it's a different set of challenges and circumstances in the UK that lead to farming having one of the highest suicide rates of any career here.
I have seen sheep on their back, driving passed a pasture in my car. I just thought they were having a scratch and thought nothing of it. I live in the country and should know this stuff. Thanks for this video.
@@TheEvilCheesecake bro you can’t be serious😂 aside from Nat Geo, and the fishing and hunting channel. There is literally nothing. Do you have a bunch of progressive perverse sexual shows that’s about it.
Thanks for posting this! Years ago, when I was 19 and driving home late at night...perfectly dressed after a night out, and naturally it was chucking it down with rain, I stopped after passing a sheep upside down, in a drainage ditch in the field by the side of the road. I backed up,climbed through the barbed wire fence and grabbed hold of the wool and hauled her over. I'm glad to know that I did the right thing 😊🐑
As I live in a part of Germany with many sheep I was aware of this and know how important it is to help. Fortunately I never had to help so far, but would not hesitate to do so. Thank you for showing more people what to do and how to help. 🙏❤️
I’ve often found that the sheep actually CAN get up but lacks a sense of urgency. I’ve sometimes approached a “stuck sheep” (whether upside down or in a briar patch) only to have it jump up in fright and get free. Not the most analytical minds on the farm. I think part of the cause is the wool, which grows much more thickly on domestic sheep than it did on their wild ancestors
"Not the most analytical minds on the farm" is the understatement of the century. imo sheep are the only animal on earth absolutely determined to do everything in their power to hasten their own demise.
@@alainportant6412 You must be very young. Saw an old man in the pharmacy the other day, pushing his wheeled walker past me in the queue and wasting no time, yet not obnoxious or pushy. He turned out to be 99.
The contrast between incredibly peaceful scenery+a cute sheep and macabre knowledge of how easily sheep can reach the eternal sleep gave me whiplash. Thank you for saving that sheep though. I've never seen one in real life before, but now I'll be prepared.
Little adjustment to how to turn it over: you shouldn't turn it to the left or right as this can give problems with their stomachs, instead push them upright into a sitting position and keep them there for a bit to let them recover and take some breaths. Afterwards keep an eye on them for 10 min or so to make sure they don't get themselves into the same position again.
@@misssmith7225 I wouldn't pull on the legs as that might be painful for the sheep, but push it up from under it's shoulders. Yes that would be very heavy for sure but most adults should be able to manage I think. Doing it like in this video risks gastric volvulus from what I've heard, which can be deadly and needs surgery. Of course if the choice is between turning it over badly and it staying on it's back the choice is obvious.
" but most adults should be able to manage I think." You think?! you're talking out of your ass now. You see how heavy they can get, just do what a sheppard showed you...
I’m going with the OG advice both because it makes sense & you can watch it work right in the vid - besides, I’m not playing w/end at Bernie’s w/no sheep.
Thank you for posting this video. If I had ever come across a sheep upside down like this, I would never have known it was stuck, until it was too late. You might just have saved many sheep lives! Cheers!
Up here in North Yorkshire we use the terms ‘rigged’ or ‘welted’ to describe a sheep stuck on its back. One popular market town brewery by the very appropriate name of Black Sheep brewery produce a fairly potent dark ale bearing the name ‘Riggwelter’, a joining of the two local phrases and aptly describes what several pints of said brew is likely to do to the one over indulging.
In Norwegian we have the same term. The Vikings brought it to England. Rygg means "back" and to velt means "tip over", so "ryggveltet" or "riggwelted" means "tipped over on the back".
I have no idea what the youtube algorithm is up to at the moment, but I am kind of happy that it pushed this video into my feed. Born and raised on the countryside I have never come across a sheep in this situation, but I am happy that I now know what to do! Thank you!
