Off the southern coast of Maine are a number of small islands where sheep are kept. The owners of those sheep live mostly on the mainland, and until recent years neither food nor shelter has been provided for their island flocks.
The hardy sheep have survived the rough winters, living on kelp and seeking protection from the storms under the covert of the spruce and fir trees. The old, the weak, and the young have often died from exposure, or been drowned in trying to get their food from the rocks at low tide. Their bodies have sometimes been found frozen to the ground in the woods, and sometimes hunger has driven the wild creatures to remote houses, as was the case with a lamb which limped to a farmer's door, one foot being frozen quite off.
The attention of the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals was called to this cruel neglect, with the result that low wooden structures, stored with hay, were built, and the friends of the sheep, knowing of safe folds provided, felt that they could sleep more comfortably on stormy nights.
