When I began farming I was advised by an older farmer "that I would bury my flock every 20 years" – meaning that I should expect an annual death rate among my breeding sheep of 5%.
After a lifetime working with those woolly creatures, I can now reveal that 5% is an optimistic figure and that it's not uncommon to lose 7%.
It seems that a sheep's only desire in life is to die, and their ability to find new ways to go about it never ceased to amaze me.
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