I have 10 rams living peacefully together in a 2 acre field. They have established their "pecking order" and they get along very well and are good buddies. They are always fine until I remove some of them to use in breeding groups. Then when I put those rams back in with the other rams again, I have to do it very carefully.
When reintroducing rams that have been apart, it takes about 5 days to reintroduce the rams to each other. They will fight to the death (backing up and ramming each other until they break each other's necks) if I would allow them to be together in a large space without this careful reintroduction. So I start out by cramming all 10 rams together like sardines in a tiny sturdy space, approximately 5 feet wide by about 10 feet long. They stay in this space for 24 to 48 hours, with very little to eat and drink. I try to provide water in buckets secured near the edges of this area, and also hay in baskets hanging off the edge. The rams will push and lean on each other and use their body weight to bully one another. If the gates are not secure, they may literally push them down in the process of doing this, so it is important to have a very strong area. Some rams will insist on butting others even in this small space, just by "flinging" their heads to slug each other. But slowly, they will calm down and just stand there. Of course some of the rams are not bullies, they are just innocent bystanders. But it is important that every ram on the premises be involved in this procedure, as they must all learn their "pecking order" as part of the ram flock. Otherwise, at a later time some of the "innocent bystander" rams may end up being unnecessarily hurt by the bullying rams when the ram flock is reunited in a large field. Also, all the rams are needed to pack the pen, in order to keep the space for movement as limited as possible. After about 1.5 to 2 days, I will quickly transfer all 10 of the rams into a slightly larger space (about 16 x 16 feet), hopefully as secure as the first space. The fighting will start up again, and a certain amount of this must simply be tolerated. Some of the ram foreheads, noses and so forth may look a little bloody, as they rub and butt each other's heads. But the good thing is that they cannot back up very far, so hopefully they cannot get enough power going to really hurt one another seriously. Again, I just keep buckets of water secured to the walls and hay in baskets along the walls -- I definitely do not feed anything extra such as corn or other grain during this time. And I do not enter the pen. I fill the water buckets from outside, and toss the hay into the baskets from outside. Only certain rams will fight. The others (particularly the younger ones, including ram lambs) will just sort of keep their heads down and try to not get in the middle of the trouble. For the next two days, I will hear occasional sounds of butting (skull to skull). Gradually, the fighting settles down and (probably due to exhaustion as much as anything else) they seem to accept each other's presence. After about the second day in the 16 x 16 foot pen, I will transfer them to a larger area (such as a 75 x 100 foot area) but only if the fighting seems to have stopped. At this point they will have been in small quarters for a total of about 4 or 5 days. If there is occasional butting soon after this, I will intervene only if it looks like their lives are in jeopardy. Usually, however, they are so exhausted from their sparring that they are willing to calm down and get along after this point. The important thing to remember is that it is very, very dangerous to intervene when two rams are involved in head butting in a large area. They may kill each other, but they may also kill you or your stock dogs if you happen to get in the middle. By all means, you should avoid letting the situation happen where you turn rams out too soon into a large area when they are still sparring. It is very difficult to find a way to stop that event safely once it has started. Also, please remember that with every transfer to a slightly larger area, there will be some resuming of fights, but (hopefully) things will settle down again shortly as the rams get accustomed to their new larger area. Once rams have been introduced or reintroduced in this way and are no longer fighting, I can then transfer them into a large pasture with no problem. It is also important to mention that you should never house rams in a field or area next to a ewe field or area. The rams must have a fairly wide area as a "buffer zone", separating them from the girls. Otherwise, they will fight continuously along the adjoining fence line, for rights to the ewes. I have my rams in a separate pasture, with at least one hundred feet of buffer zone between the ram pasture and my other areas. To help the situation, many people recommend putting ram shields on each ram during this reintroduction period. Rams shields are thick cowhide face masks that prevent the rams from seeing straight forward, and thus help to stop them from behaving so aggressively to one another. I have used ram shields in the past, but I no longer bother with them as they can slip off, and they may provide a false sense of security for the sheep breeder. Also, some of the rams seem determined to fight, regardless of whether they can see or not. I have found that it is better to just reintroduce rams carefully and systematically as indicated above. I should also mention that many times when I have removed a ram from his ram buddies for as little as 20 minutes, the rams will begin to fight when I put him back in the pen. Situations like that are hard to deal with, and I usually end up just hoping they will settle down soon and not get into any major fights after such a short time apart. It is really a lot of trouble to reintroduce rams. I can take a ram out of his group of buddies in 5 minutes, but it takes 5 days to put him and his buddies back together! For that reason, regardless of when I start my various breeding groups, I like to finish all my breeding groups on the same day and put all the rams from those breeding groups back together with their other ram buddies on that day. That way, I will only have to go through this reintroduction procedure once or twice per year. Once my rams have gotten over their reintroduction sparring, they are the best of friends. They seldom if ever are aggressive to each other, and they love to be near one another. Also I should mention that at my farm I have rams with all kinds of personalities. Some rams are determined to kill me if they get a chance. Others are just sweethearts, and just want to be peacemakers, and don't want any trouble. I respect them all, and have taught them to respect me. I walk softly and carry a big stick -- that seems to be the right approach with all of them! Sincerely, Mary Swindell _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
