You've all driven past flocks of sheep, gambolling and frolicking as usual (the sheep, not you) and spotted the little spots of colour that farmers use to mark them out for various purposes.

So we've got two things: sheep are visible from roads, and they carry colour. They are the last bastions of unused advertising space! (apart from all the other ones considered on the bakery)

I envision a sheep-sized inkjet printer, with a conveyor belt moving at a constant rate, to print corporate logos, slogans, and the like on the sheep's sides - the ink should be easily erasable with a second agent, and the sheep could be hired out on a weekly basis!

(nb. I swear when this idea occurred to me I thought it was all mine - however, reading [xenzag]'s post, and [Canuck]'s addition, I may have accidentally channelled the 'bakery for a moment..)
-- navel-gazer, Mar 05 2008

Sheep in Sheep's Clothing Sheep_20in_20Sheep_27s_20Clothing
[xenzag]'s idea [navel-gazer, Mar 05 2008]

While searching... http://www.stuff.co.nz/4292708a1860.html
..for other sheep-display-related things, I found this. [neutrinos_shadow, Mar 05 2008]

Bastion of unused advertising space? If only. http://www.nytimes....europe/24sheep.html
[jutta, Mar 06 2008]

Halfbakery: Baa Relief Baa_20Relief
Related idea, but for art, not profit. [jutta, Mar 06 2008]

Why not use coloured sheep as mobile pixels in an animated display?

If you only have a limited number of sheep, then paint some black and some red. Plant a hedge on a steep hillside, with a single wide gap in it. Train the sheep to run past the gap in formation, thereby creating one of those scrolling-message- LED-banner-style displays. The sheep can of course be recirculated.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2008


I was trying to find a photo of sheep being used to write things in fields in NZ, but to no avail. It's been done plenty of times in NZ, both using hay on the ground to get the sheep to write something visible from the air, and painting messages on the sheep (typically one letter per sheep). I found the linked article while I was at it.
-- neutrinos_shadow, Mar 05 2008


[navel-gazer] - the idea of a sheep printer is most excellent and totally original +
-- xenzag, Mar 06 2008


hilarious, MB.
-- po, Mar 06 2008


Hmm, nice one MB, but I'm unsure of the inherent trainability of sheep - might need some fiendishly clever sheepdogs (painted bright colours to form an attractive border to the sheep display, obviously). Or perhaps strategic sheep-herding robots. Or little radio-earphones for the sheep to reproduce sheepdogs' barking in stereo, and thus steer them around in programmed patterns?
-- navel-gazer, Mar 06 2008


Thanks [jutta]. I remembered Baa Relief but now I see that it is different, so I'll bestow a bun on this one. +
-- xandram, Mar 06 2008


//but I'm unsure of the inherent trainability of sheep// I think that, if you can train sheep to rescue skiers from avalanches, you could certainly train them to walk past a hedge in the right order.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2008


Oh great! LAMB SPAM!
-- copycat042, Mar 07 2008



random, halfbakery