C-Sheep was developed at he National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University (UK) to suport teaching on the BA Computer Visualisation & Animation course.

Programs for C-Sheep are written using a subset of the ANSI C programming language that implements a basic set of control structures (simple iteration, selection and sequence) as well as the definition of sub-routines (functions).

In terms of C, the control structures available in C-Sheep are the block, if and if-else alternatives, as well as while and do-while loops. Unlike other teaching languages which are variable free to provide an environment with minimal complexity, C-Sheep allows the declaration and use of variables and therefore includes a full set of arithmetical operators.

As with C functions, C-Sheep functions can return values of the variable data types (unless declared as void, i.e. typeless) and receive parameters. Identical to programs in the C programming language, C-Sheep programs always require the top-level function "main" to be defined. This function provides the entry point of a C-Sheep program from which it will begin program execution.

C-Sheep comes with a companion library for regular C compilers as a companion to "The Meadow". This library exposes C-Sheep functions to the ANSI C language, allowing C-Sheep programs to be written using off-the-shelf compilers. The idea is to simplify the transition from C-Sheep to regular ANSI C, as suggested by Untch (Teaching Programming Using the Karel the Robot Paradigm Realized with a Conventional Language).