catchall for adult ram issues
Soay sheep horns come in all sizes and shapes. The rams may have tightly spiraled horns; thick horns of varying diameters; horns tilted at an angle before turning back in a corkscrew (or remaining in a flat plane); open, wide-angled spirals in the shape of a Celtic “M”; and everything in between. There’s more: the spiral […]
There’s no need to mark your calendar to remind yourself that it’s breeding season for your Soay sheep – the rams will let you know by their appearance and their behavior. As usual, a few pictures tell the story best. Eight days ago we taped the horns of rams going to new homes this fall, including […]
Several readers brought me up short by chastising me for unfairly omitting the yearling ewes (gimmers) from my report on the late-winter spurt of ram horn growth. I was tempted to ignore their criticisms, so certain was I that only rams could possibly exhibit dramatic horn growth. But then good manners and a little nagging voice in my head prevailed, and it was back to […]
When last we met to discuss signs of spring, the topic was chicken eggs. It’s about time to re-direct attention to Soay sheep, don’t you think? Every year along about January or early February, our previous spring’s ram lambs — what I refer to loosely as our “yearlings” — begin an impressive growth spurt which by the end of summer will take them nearly […]