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The OED also attributes the phrase "to bear the bell" in the sense "to take the first place" as originally referring to the leading cow or sheep of a drove or flock to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, 1374. In 15th-century Germany, a cow bell was worn only by the best and leading piece of livestock.
Awassi sheep can be kept under a wide range of production systems, from nomadic flocks relying on natural pasture in semi-arid areas where lamb production is the primary products, to intensive dairy flocks where milk and lambs contribute almost equally to the flock gross income, and it is known for its hardiness and adaptability. [citation needed]
A group of sheep is called a flock. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age. As a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and are represented in much modern language and symbolism.
Band – a flock with a large number of sheep, generally 1000, which graze on rangeland. Bell sheep – a sheep (usually a rough, wrinkly one) caught by a shearer, just before the end of a shearing run. [1] Bellwether – originally an experienced wether given a bell to lead a flock; now mainly used figuratively for a person acting as a lead ...
The origin of the breed is not known; broken-coloured polycerate sheep were present in England by the middle of the seventeenth century, and were widespread a century later. A breed society was formed in 1969, and a flock book was published from 1972. The Jacob was kept for centuries as a "park sheep", to ornament the large estates of landowners.
The exact origin of the breed is unknown although it is thought to be a cross of the original Texel sheep with multiple English breeds. It was slowly bred into a meat breed of outstanding carcass quality. It is now one of the most common meat breeds in the Netherlands, making up seventy percent of the national flock.
It is a large heavy sheep, somewhat stockier and shorter in the leg than some other British longwool breeds; rams usually weigh some 115–135 kg, ewes about 85–110 kg. [4]: 796 [7]: 122 Like the breeds from which it derives, it is polled (hornless). The wool is long and forms curls or ringlets, covering the head and legs as well as the body.
A flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep. The Black Welsh Mountain sheep (Welsh: Defaid Mynydd Duon, pronounced [ˈdevaɪd ˈmənɪð ˈdɪɔn]) is a colour type of the Welsh Mountain sheep, bred for sheep farming in Wales. It occurs occasionally in flocks of other colours, but is now often maintained as a separate strain.