One of my favorite hybrid bighorn sheep

This is off topic from whitetail but I wanted to share one of my favorite hybrid bighorn rams with you guys.  This ram will be three this April.  The hybrid vigor we get in horn growth is amazing.  This ram weighs 250 pounds and has 14 plus inch bases.  He is the second picture.  Now that I look at the picture I think I feed them too much.  LOL


Here are also pictures of two other rams that will be two this April and some ewes.  These rams are harvestable at three years old.  Harvest facilities that have the right kind of clients have a use for animals like this and they sell very well for me.  The ones I sold this year had 14 plus inch bases and were from 40 to 42 inch's long in horn.

Johnny,


The coming three year old is very sassy.  When he was a long yearling he would meet me at the gate and slam his head into it.  I have a hip replacement from a bighorn that hit me.  So the truth is when they do this it scares the crap out of me.  As we no longer have harvest facilities in Montana as that is where I would have gone with him I tried something new.  I put a dog shock collar on him and when he hit the gate I hit the shock button.  He came back to the gate and did it again and I hit the shock button again.  I then went in and chased him around and every time he let me get close I hit the shock button.  So for a year he thought I was God and kept away from me till just the other day.


Well last week I went in to look at his girl friends as I was checking for blue marks on their back as I had put blue on his chest so when he bred them it would leave a mark.  He felt I was to interested in his girl friends and raised up on his hind legs and ran toward me.  I screamed at him (not really like a girl scream really) and he dropped to his feet.  As I backed out he did it again and again I gave a real manly scream which got Scott's attention and when we were both there he quite the aggression.


I looked up the shock collar and charged it up.  I was ready to train him again.  It didn't work because his coat is so long the pins didn't get to his skin so no shock.  We are going to catch him up and shave his neck area as I need him to believe I'm in charge.  For now I just stay out of his pen.

Deer Whisperer,


No we don't bottle feed sheep just every now and then one rams does this.  As far as feed this time of year they just get alfalfa grass hay.  They are lots easier to feed than deer or should I say cheaper.  Winter here has been very easy so far with it only going to zero  for a few days.  We are almost snow free and day temps are 32 to 40 so not bad.

Lewis,


When we started using LAP AI we were at 10% conception.  Over the years we have been able to work out a schedule on sheep that will give very reasonable results.  Last year we averaged 75% conception.