“Ram lookin’ over a four-leaf clover…”
Yesterday was a stunningly beautiful early autumn day in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains, a perfect day to photograph the rams leaving our farm for eight (so far) new homes in the next few weeks. Now I’m back inside with a couple of hundred photos and struck by how many of them show an otherwise stately British Soay ram shamelessly gorging on clover. We’ve read that sheep vasty prefer clover to ordinary pasture grass, but we have never tried to figure out whether this bit of sheep lore is true.
I’m not sure about scientific bases for much of anything; I rely on my resident geneticist for data. But having watched and photographed our rams in what for them was a new stretch of pasture, I can attest to their preference for clover, however many leaves it has.
All of which leads me to conclude that a gallery of silly pictures of rams chomping on clover is probably just as effective as using dignified pictures to illustrate the array of horn types, fleece colors, and body conformations about to be shared with fellow heritage sheep lovers from Massachusetts to South Carolina to Wisconsin to Kentucky and points in between. I hope you are outside enjoying the sunshine, but if you are stuck inside, have a look. As always, click on any picture to enlarge it.
I leave you with this fun photo of two rams vying for the Best Clover Eater award:

Holmsted (yellow tape) will arrive in Kentucky shortly after Ron Keener drops Sheldon (red tape) off in northern Wisconsin
For now …