Well if my present job goes down the can then I think I will set up as a portrate photgrapher in NZ. Potential 60m customers!

Suggestions please as to suitable backgrounds for the portrates.

It also says they remember up to 10 human faces, can they remember the wellies too as they might not have seen the face, heh heh heh...

Family snaps keep sheep happy
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 25/08/2004)


Lonely sheep, like lonely people, are much happier when they see pictures of friends and family, according to a study published yesterday.

A group at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge has found that the sight of a friendly face reduces stress in sheep.

The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, could point to the reason that many of us carry pictures of loved ones.

In the case of the sheep, "seeing a face picture of a friend or family member would be the most effective way of reducing separation anxiety", said Prof Keith Kendrick, who led the study.

"In this sense sheep may provide a comparison with us carrying around pictures of loved ones in our wallets, handbags and so on," he said, adding that children might find comfort from carrying around a photo of their parents.

In the study, Prof Kendrick and colleagues put sheep into a darkened barn on their own and showed them various faces, while recording their behaviour.

Stress was measured by monitoring the number of times each sheep bleated, its movement within the barn and its heart rate.

Blood samples were taken to measure the levels of cortisol and adrenaline, hormones which are both chemical indicators of stress.

When the sheep were shown faces of sheep familiar to them, they became less stressed and showed fewer signs of agitation than when they were shown goat faces or triangles. The areas of the brain which control fear and the stress response also showed reduced activation.

All of the indicators of stress measured during the test showed significant reductions.

These results provide evidence that face pictures may be useful for relieving stress caused by unavoidable social isolation in sheep, and possibly other animal species, including humans.

Prof Kendrick has found that sheep, while apparently ruminating mindlessly, could be dwelling on long-absent flock mates, mothers or even shepherds.

Sheep can remember at least 50 sheep faces, even in profile. The animals can also remember 10 or more familiar human faces.