I only worked with shepherds for a few years about 50 years ago.
These are all my personal observations, so anecdotal.
I do recall rams taking leads. Most of the rams had bells on their necks.
The only thing sheep in general were able to do is follow the sound of the closest bell.
Most think that in large flocks the shepherd directs the dogs to guide all the sheep. This is not the case with the shepherds I worked with. They only need to guide the "edge" rams. All the sheep follow the loudest bell. The rams in the middle of the herd follow the edge rams' bell, and the edge rams get guided by the dogs. The dog gets directed by the shepherd. Exception to this is when there are stragglers.
Sheep do rotate, that is, if you look at it from the top and the herd makes a circle then the circle keeps rotating, both overall, and rotating the inner ones outwards. They do this while moving in a general direction. Weirdest thing to see.
There were some herds where few billy goats with bells were included. If a herd gets attacked they make a circle, all sheep facing inward. The goats all face outward. Go figure.
As a last note, ram riding is not as easy as it seems. As a little boy I try to hang on, but they go from 0 to crazy in seconds, and blow into the middle of the herd. Then, spend hours to get the flees off.
This made me laugh, and you're not wrong exactly, but I will note that "flock" is also used for birds, and birds are frequently used as a metaphor for freedom just as much as sheep are used as a metaphor for mindless group-following behaviour.
I really saw a herd of sheep briefly, maybe induced by the word in the title. Things the brain can do. Couldn't help smiling, since I'm preparing a [CV] dataset/model to count cattle herds, and some of the images are really like that one. :)
First of all, herding involves reading livestock's intention, predicting where they'll go next, and stepping towards them in a way that nudges them in the right direction. Watch a video on actual sheepdog work: search for "herding trials". The human instructs the dog at a high level: circle around, drive the herd, round up stragglers, or peel some individual off the herd. Pretty sure Boston isn't up to this level of image recognition and goal planning yet. It's like guarding a shooter in basketball.
Also, on a biology level, the dog mostly moves the animals with body language and gaze. Sheep infer a threat from how the dog is staring and react. Pretty sure Boston doesn't have the stare down either. The sheep might get accustomed to a bot that wasn't reacting with them.
The lead sheep is an ewe, and the other sheep follow her if I need to move them. She's dominant and will shove everyone out of the way if there's something she wants. They have a social ranking that changes slightly depending on a bunch of factors, but it's pretty much matriarchal. My lead sheep's daughters have high status, too.
My ram has a bell so I know where he is, because rams can be dangerous and the bell sound gives me warning if he decides to sneak up behind me.
Shepherds will put bells on their lead sheep so they can find them again if they're grazing in large pastures. Less dominant sheep will tend to stay close to lead sheep.
All of this is surprisingly variable depending on sheep breed. More domesticated sheep breeds tend to have stronger flocking instincts, which makes them easier to herd.
The paper is suggesting that sheep in herds tend to follow each other, and in that sense end up with "leaders" - that is, a single or relatively few animals that are able to direct the herd as it moves for a short while. Reminds me of watching boids
Makes sense. Honestly we do this too - when travelling in large crowds certain people take on the role of leader (one person parting crowds who is large or particularly determined to get to their friend or just happened to be first, and chains of others follow them because it's the right general direction as well and is easier than pushing through oncoming traffic)
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