How would flight factor into shepherding for Aarakocra (birdfolk, basically)?

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Starfish Prime's answer is very good, but there are a couple elements to the analogy that wouldn't be present in your circumstance. While SP is aware it's an imperfect analogy, I want to directly address these differences.

If you use something like a helicopter, you probably only have one of them. Very large operations might have two or three, but, still, use will be limited. If you have an entire race of beings who fly, you have many chances to lay eyes on your flocks from the air.
Helicopters and other large equipment must be operated by adults (perhaps a very skilled teen) who have extensive training.

In real life, shepherds are often children. Depending of course on the amount of work involved and how long they needed to be away from the village in order to do their work.

In many societies, shepherds were an important part of the economy. Unlike farmers, shepherds were often wage earners, being paid to watch the sheep of others. Shepherds also lived apart from society, being largely nomadic. It was mainly a job of solitary males without children, and new shepherds thus needed to be recruited externally. Shepherds were most often the younger sons of farming peasants who did not inherit any land. In other societies, each family would have a family member to shepherd its flock, often a child, youth or an elder who couldn't help much with harder work; these shepherds were fully integrated in society.

Shepherds would normally work in groups either looking after one large flock, or each bringing their own and merging their responsibilities. They would live in small cabins, often shared with their sheep, and would buy food from local communities. Less often shepherds lived in covered wagons that traveled with their flocks.

Children would be more likely to do the work in situations where they could go home at night and where there wasn't as much physical danger (from being trampled or from fighting off predators, for example).

If your people can fly, a society is much more likely to send a child to go check on things, then come back to get help if required. A child (or a small group of them) could also hang out with the livestock all day and fly home each night. In the case of danger, the children would fly into the air to escape it (if they ever come down at all).

They can also alert other adults to help more easily than land-bound shepherds because of their eyesight. Not only is it much better that that of humans, but being in the air gives them advantages as well. One because they will see problems from further away, which gives them more time to get help and also they'll (sometimes) be closer to home when they see it. One because adults are more likely to spot them from afar as they fly home in distress.

In larger communities, or ones with many widespread herds, you could have a group of flyers whose sole job it is to be communication beacons (assuming of course that you don't have modern technology).

Adults would do the heavy work, like moving herds. In many cases, they might join the children to help direct something like a change of pastures.

This means more adults in your society are free to do other work (either full or part time). It also means there's more work for children than there might be otherwise, so your educational systems will change to accommodate that. School can be in the pastures (or on a hill overlooking one), or during times when the herds are closer to home (just after mass birthings or when the grass isn't available. If your society doesn't have formal academics, then "school" times would be when the children are trained in other adult occupations.

posted over 4 years ago