[Jacob-list] horn question

[WenlochFrm at aol.com]

In the book, "The Great Arc of the Wild Sheep", which I think would be safe 
in relating to Jacob horns, they could tell the ages of the rams by the rings 
on the horn very similar to the annual growth rings of trees. Interestingly, 
the horns never stopped growing throughout the life of the ram, but grew less 
and less with each succeeding year until later in life when the rings were 
extremely close together. The greatest length between rings was in the first 
year and became progressively shorter each year until about age four or five 
with very little annual growth thereafter.

In relating that to Jacobs, horns broken in the first year will grow back, 
but will never achieve the length of the unbroken horn. Broken in the second 
year, you would lose all the length of the first year's growth, but would 
still get some growth, but progressively less each year. I had a ewe break 
one of her top horns off two years ago at the age of four, and it has not 
grown at all that I see. One that broke hers at two did grow somewhat, but 
not as much as it would have if she had been a yearling.

An interesting thing that Luther Hardy mentioned one time is that if you have 
a ewe lamb with flimsy, loose lateral horns, they can just be twisted off and 
will then grow back firmly attached and much stronger. But after that you 
have to stop slamming the horns in gates.

Joan Franklin
              

In a message dated 6/29/00 6:08:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
wolfpen at alltel.net writes:

> 
>  I have a yearling ewe with quite nice horns.  A few years ago, 
>  I quit 
>  keeping any lambs without all strong horns.  This girl was 
>  born with 
>  nice, firmly attached horns - never had a wobbly little scur 
>  on her 
>  head.  About six months ago, our maniac Nubian hit her and 
>  broke a 
>  lateral. Then I slammed her head in the gate (not on 
>  purpose!)  a few 
>  months ago and really tore off the other.  Wouldn't you know 
>  - I've 
>  never slammed a poor horned animal in the gate.  Any way, 
>  when I had 
>  some lambs with wobbler horns and those horns would 
>  break, they would 
>  grow back pretty quickly.  These horns seem to be growing 
>  back pretty 
>  slowly, although both are quite thick, neither seems to be 
>  getting 
>  much longer.  The horns were about 6 inches long when they 
>  were 
>  broken.  When mature horns are broken do they sometimes 
>  grow back 
>  very slowly, if at all???
>