I needed to update ram photos on the website. This is the adult ram page and the ram lamb page. I need to make decisions about which rams to keep and which to sell and how many ram lambs to continue to evaluate.

Right now there are five mature Jacob rams here and several ram lambs.

Fair Adventure Horatio is the most recent ram. I brought him home from Colorado where I sold Turbo (blog post from Estes Park). He is not with the other rams because I didn’t want to disrupt the pecking order. He has had a ram lamb or two with him for company, but after breeding season he will go with the other rams.

Here is what I wanted to avoid with introducing Horatio to this mix. These four have been together for several months but they were fighting a couple of days ago. I don’t know if it was because I was in the ram pen and they decided to get feisty. Or was it that the ewes are starting to cycle and there seemed to be some interest across the fence? Silverado, the 4-horn ram on the right, hasn’t been feeling well–spending a lot of time in the ram shed lying down. I think he may have had bluetongue which causes sore feet. Now he is doing better and is out with the others–so maybe that was reason to reestablish pecking order…and he is not on top anymore.

The lilac 4-horn ram, Patchwork Townes, is the oldest at 3 years. Hillside Barrett is the 2-horn ram on the left. He and Silverado (middle) are the same age, born in 2021.

After Townes and Barrett both bashed Silverado, then they went at each other. The ram on the right is Thorn–that is my granddaughter’s ram that we showed at State Fair. He is a yearling.

All four of them are facing off here.

Thorn didn’t seem to be as aggressive as Barrett and Townes, but this photo shows he took his turn.

Townes and Silverado.

Townes seemed to be the aggressor again…

…but Barrett was still involved.

You might ask why I let this happen. This was relatively mild as ram fighting goes. After breeding season I go through a protocol to keep the damage to a minimum. I put the rams in a very small pen. They fight but they can’t back up and put the power into the hits. After a few days they have figured out who is on top and if the others remain subservient they all get along. ..usually.

The reason I was in the ram pen was to get photos. Here are the photos I got.

Hillside Gabby’s Barrett. Don’t you love those horns? He is only two this year.

Patchwork Townes, 3 years old.

I need a better photo of Silverado.

Thorn is Silverado’s son from 2022.

Blizzard is one of Silverado’s sons from this year.

Cyclone is Blizzard’s twin. I’m not sure if he lower horns will point away from his neck–I hope so because I’d like to keep him as a replacement for Silverado.

Decisions to make…