Welcome Home Barnyard Sanctuary

Learn more about the animals that live here!

ANIMALS - Sheep - Freddie

Freddie

My name is Freddie and I am a breed of sheep known as a Dorper. I have white wool on my body and black wool on my head and I have big beautiful curling horns. I am the strongest sheep around. I came to the sanctuary from a ranch where there were hundreds of sheep. The sheep at the ranch used to have to fight for food because there was not enough for everyone to eat. I was young and small but I did my best to fight for my share. But the others were so big and strong that I never got enough to fill me up. The bigger, stronger sheep rammed me and pushed me away from the food. I was always hungry. I decided that when I got bigger, I was going to push and shove the smaller sheep with all of my might so that I could get the food I needed. When my new mom rescued me and brought me to the sanctuary, I couldn’t believe how much food there was. Still, I hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to be hungry and what I had learned about pushing the others to get their food. During my first meal at the sanctuary, I finished my food and rammed the nearest sheep, Lucy, HARD and started to eat her food. Youshould have seen Lucy’s face, she was shocked. To my surprise, my new mom pulled me away from Lucy’s food bowl and put some more food in my bowl! I ate enough to fill me up for the first time in my life. But old habits are hard to break and the next day once I had finished my food I decided that it was Louie’s turn to be shoved away from his food. I rammed him as hard as I could but he was stubborn and didn’t give up his food. He turned to face me and rammed me back. This guy was tough! My new mom was watching, but she didn’t interfere this time. I thought to myself “I can’t let him win, or I’ll never get enough to eat.” So, I rammed him back - really hard, this time. I thought that would be the end of it and that I could have his food, too, but NO! Louie came right back and tried to finish his food. When I didn’t move, he rammed me! We butted heads for a long time, I couldn’t let him win, we shoved and butted all over the pasture for what seemed like forever. Finally, we were both hot and tired and out of breath so we decided to call a truce to rest and cool off. But Louie had forgotten about his food! I snuck back over to his bowl to finish it off. It was empty! While we were busy fighting over the food, someone else had eaten it. Neither of us got the food that we were both so busy fighting over! My new mom told me that there was no need to fight over food here because there was always enough for everyone. Then she gave Louie and me a second helping. We ate right next to each other without fighting. The next day we were both very sore but I had learned a valuable lesson. I’m very strong and I’m still not sure whether or not I’m stronger than Louie but it doesn’t really matter here. Everyone, even the smallest and weakest, gets all that they need to eat!