Though sheep play a huge role in the consciousness of our culture (through nursery rhymes, children's stories, fables, and religion), our primary relationship to them is through our exploitation of them. Whether it's their wool we're shearing, their skin we're wearing, their flesh we're eating, or their milk we're taking, we value sheep as we do other domesticated animals: simply for what we can take from them until they're all used up and shipped to slaughter - literally.