"You haven't eaten lots of them yet?"
No this was on a fresh game. Since Im trying to solo mode it, the sheep encounter is the only large food source I can beat the fight for, and even just in year one they were stupidly rare. For fun I kept track over 50 "hunt for farm animals" encounters and only got 1 sheep. In comparision I got 21 cows, 7 pigs, 5 ogres, 2 geese, 1 ogre+elf, 3 maidens, 6 buildings, 2 patrols, 1 monestary, and 1 summer palace.
This explains why getting lots of food as a tiny dragon is always so hard, the low level food encounters are stupidly rare >.>