There's no particular reason to assume this, I would think. It's easier and cheaper to grow a sheep herd, since their birth rate is faster than cattle, but cattle live longer as well.
> My understanding is that pigs are easy - you let them run free
> around the stead or in the woods nearby and they forage for
> themselves.
One of the big disadvantages to pigs is that they're essentially a pure food animal. It makes more sense to put labour resources into sheep, cattle, and poultry: their existence produces useful by-products that can be harvested as well as a carcase.
And speaking of pure food animals, I wonder if the Orlanthi keep rabbits?
> Sheep and cattle need to be moved from pasture to pasture by
> herders. There are seasonal high and low pastures.
> Herds are culled at the end of Earth-season. They need to be
> kept indoors (in a barn or a stead byre) during Dark-season.
This is especially true of pigs -- pigs are quite vulnerable to cold weather (as much, if not more so, as people).
> What seasons are associated with the high/low pasture transhumance?
>
> Do Orlanthi use oxen or horses for plowing? IIRC, the horse
> collar was a significant invention IRW - which is not to say
> the Orlanthi can't have them.
I believe they use oxen, as one of the significant social levels in Heortling life is owning your own, full (oxen) plow-team.
> During the good seasons, do the herds stay out in the pastures
> all day and night? Presumably herd-boys stay with them, maybe
> with alynx assistance?
>
> Would there be a small stead (or even just a hut) at the high
> pasture for the herders?
There would most likely be a sheep shed in high pastures for sheep, and the herder(s) would sleep with the sheep. In low pastures, the sheep would be brought into the sheep shed nearer the sted at night.
Cattle I can see leaving out at night. Sheep are too stupid to leave untended.
(Short of chickens and turkeys, sheep are quite possibly the dumbest domesticated animals known to humanity.)
-- V.
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