Let's Play a Game! "Age that sheep!"

[Jpmiller]

I'm consistently a year or two off on the low side from what the majority of you are seeing. I can only come up with 9 on Karl's last one and 8 on the one on the wall.

[LDennis24]

I see 8.5 yrs on Falcons ram and not 9.5. Again once a ram gets to a full curl his horn growth slows drastically. I know this from raising sheep and that's all. Obviously nutrition plays the biggest role in growth like any other animal. If you look at the Wild Sheep Society judging charts they show how certain factors like droughts or nutrition or even disease can cause false annuli as the rams body will conserve energy for healing and it will give an appearance of the winter annuli where the growth slowed or stopped for a period. I have a ram that has some brittle narrow spots on his horns where he got sick and almost died a few yrs back. He is healthy again but it permanently affected his horn growth habits. I'll find the pics from the WSC site.

[LDennis24]

Here's what they are pointing out.

[LDennis24]

A few others

[Houndhunter]

I'm seeing 9 on falcons sheep, nice ram btw. 38" is big!

[Falcon]

I'm seeing 9 on falcons sheep, nice ram btw. 38" is big!

Thanks Houndhunter.  The ole say it’s better to be lucky than good.......
That was me on that hunt

[LDennis24]

It's the perfect specimen for a Dall sheep. That's what I would be looking for if I was hunting them. I still don't see 9 annuli

[Houndhunter]

In my opinion your jumping from year one to year three, his second year is in-between those  .

[Falcon]

It's the perfect specimen for a Dall sheep. That's what I would be looking for if I was hunting them. I still don't see 9 annuli

I don’t know if it aging is a perfect science.  Here is another look front on.
He indeed may be 8.   Still really happy with him

[LDennis24]

In my opinion your jumping from year one to year three, his second year is in-between those  .

No because that would make year three's growth longer than year two. And I will confidently say that never happens. I have never seen it. Not on a wild animal or a domestic one. Not even on my ram who got sick and almost died. Excluding the lamb tips, the growth gets shorter every single year. After year four the inside annuli spacing usually stays the same but the top of the horn shows a change in spacing each year. It's hard to judge the age on the annuli from years 5-6 up but the younger years are always consistent. Just giving my observations raising horned sheep and looking at photos of known aged sheep. I feel like in the field it is going to be very difficult to accurately count years above 8+. I'll post the other false annuli charts for reference. One is very hard to make out years 8-10+.

[LDennis24]

Hey Falcon, if you can, get a pic of the topside of the horns near the bases and the outer top edge of the horn looking down. If it's not too high on the wall? This will show the defined grooves of each annuli.

[LDennis24]

Here is the chart of the 10+ yr old ram. So Falcons could very well be 9.5 and the hidden annuli is near the bases.

[LDennis24]

Lots of factors that make aging over 8 very difficult in the field in my opinion.

[LDennis24]

Karl's turn, what age do you think this ram is? Sorry wrong pic. Fixed it.

[Karl Blanchard]

9, full curl, and angle approved. Pow!