Cletus and Billy, two neighbors, each decide to get a sheep.

Each one puts his sheep in his garden. But at night the sheep destroy the fence. Next morning Cletus and Billy don’t know which sheep is his own. So Cletus picks a sheep and chops a leg off it. That way he knows the sheep with three legs is his.

But the following night, the sheep with four legs can’t stand for this injustice and bites its own leg off. In the morning, Cletus and Billy find the two sheep with each three legs and don’t know which sheep belongs to whom. This time Billy picks a sheep and cuts another leg off. “The one with two legs is mine”, he says.

At night, the sheep with three legs can’t stand to see his friend suffer alone. So it bites its own leg off. Next morning, Cletus and Billy find the two sheep with each two legs. So Cletus chops another leg off to know which sheep is his.

You can guess what happens now. The sheep with two legs bites another leg off. Once again Cletus and Billy can’t figure out which sheep is which. And Billy chops of the last leg of a sheep to determine ownership.

And again, the sheep with one leg bites off its own leg. So now Cletus and Billy find themselves with two sheep without legs, not knowing which sheep is which.

Billy asks “How are we going to recognize them now, Cletus?” Cletus thinks about this long and hard and finally comes up with a solution. He says “I’ll take the black one, you take the white one!”