Rural areas in many parts of the world rely heavily both economically and socially on small ruminant systems, in particular sheep (Marino et al., 2016). According to FAOSTAT (2019), there are 1238 million sheep in the world, representing 25% of all livestock (excluding poultry). Sheep grazing on pastures is part of the landscape, tradition, and cultural heritage of many countries and is crucial for the stability of rural areas, especially in the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East (Marino et al., 2016). Many sheep enterprises are found in challenging climatic and topographical conditions referred to as ‘less favoured areas (LFAs)’ in Europe, which are unsuitable for any alternative type of agriculture (Morgan-Davies et al., 2018). Although most sheep are reared in extensive environments, there is also a significant number of sheep reared under semi-extensive to intensive systems, often because of the type of production (e.g. dairy sheep systems) or for management reasons (animals being housed for certain periods of time during the year). Many sheep systems are, however, mainly based on natural feed resources, under harsh environments (Nel et al., 2023). In these disadvantaged agricultural areas, sheep are a source of employment and the high-quality traditional products they yield are broadly recognised as the result of developing a sustainable and multifunctional form of agriculture that contributes to preserving the environment and social cohesion in rural areas (Rossi, 2017).