ODDments
Sheep & Sleep
The December 2002 issue of the New Scientist magazine reports that counting sheep doesn’t help you fall asleep. Researchers at Oxford University in England divided 50 volunteer insomniacs into three groups - one that was asked to imagine a tranquil scene, a second that was told to count sheep and a third that was left to its own devices at sleep time. The people who thought of peaceful scenes nodded off an average of 20 minutes faster than the other two groups. It seems that picturing a scene takes up more brain space than sheep, plus it's more interesting.
Isn’t science wonderful! But Wait! The research was conducted during the foot and mouth epidemic in the UK when thousands of sheep were slaughtered. Maybe, given the present condition of some sheep in Australia due to the current drought, a similar study here would yield the same results. But once the drought abates and if wool prices remain high would this still be so? High prices and secure wool production would bring smiles to the faces of all wool growers and counting their sheep while going to sleep could well be the ultimate relaxation!
Illustration copyright 2003, J. Pittman.
Making Shearing Easier
Tom Roberts, Shearing the Rams, 1890.
We all know that shearing is tough work. But, speaking of research, the following is an abstract of a paper published recently in the journal Applied Ergonomics (vol 33, page 523):
“Some occupational health and safety hazards associated with sheep shearing are related to shearing shed design. One aspect is the floor of the catching pen, from which sheep are caught and dragged to the shearing workstation. Floors can be constructed from various materials, and may be level or gently sloping.
An experiment was conducted using eight experienced shearers as participants to measure the force exerted by a shearer when dragging a sheep. Results showed that significant changes in mean dragging force occurred with changes in both surface texture and slope. The mean dragging forces for different floor textures and slopes ranged from 359 N (36.6 kg) to 423N (43.2 kg), and were close to the maximum acceptable limits for pulling forces for the most capable of males. The best floor tested was a floor sloped at 1:10 constructed of timber battens oriented parallel to the path of the drag, which resulted in a mean dragging force 63.6N (15%) lower than the worst combination.”
It has now been scientifically proven that it is easier to drag sheep downhill along a smooth surface.
A full copy of this paper, which, in addition to its 7 (Australian) authors, involved 5 live sheep, 8 shearers and 400 trials, can be purchased for USD30 via http://www.sciencedirect.com.
Tom Roberts, Shearing the Rams, 1890.