The Sheep Who Walks Through Walls
Ok, it isn't walls exactly. It's actually gates. Lottie the sheep is an escape artist who is able to pick the lock on her pen's gate with her tongue.
A sheep called Lottie has proved that not all of her kind are stupid by regularly letting herself out of her locked pen… with her tongue.
Staff at Swansea Community Farm, south Wales, were baffled when Lottie and her three pen-mates started escaping every night.
CCTV cameras installed to watch over the sheep - now dubbed Ewe-dini - showed the rare Llanwennog breed was unbolting the gate using her tongue.
Animal keeper at the farm Chris Jones said the sheep's bid for freedom began a couple of months ago. "We just dismissed it at first, thinking one of us was leaving it open," he said.
"But we put CCTV in there for the lambing time and watched her using her mouth and tongue to grab the bolt, lift it up and slide it over.
This isn't really all that amazing or unusual, though. My wife had a horse that could open gate latches and did so regularly until he was caught in the act. After he was busted, the latches got changed to a different type that he couldn't work. And of course, there's Oliver. He's opened locks again and again.
By terrence, Saturday, 1 December , 2007 @ 11:01 am
I know horse-folks who say the same thing about those those lips.
One horse would get out and regularly eat something tasty but not suitable for horses. The mare’s belly would get distended and sore; but she would get out and eat the same stuff again and again. Someone saw her open the gate and they changed the lock; no more bloated, sore belly.
The horse could figure out the lock, but not the “whatever” she ate that disagreed with her. Horse sense!
By feeblemind, Saturday, 1 December , 2007 @ 12:17 pm
Silly me, I would have immediately gone with a more secure latch, like a lenth of #9 wire wrapped around the gate and post and twisted shut. Now I find out I am supposed to buy CCTV first and THEN use a more secure latch. That’s why I call myself feebleminded. I am always doing things backwards.