# Big horn sheep... who has them and are the care requirments the same?



## jason_mazzy (Jan 17, 2011)

Curious who has some, and if they need special care other sheep don't. and if they are copper sensitive.


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## jason_mazzy (Feb 5, 2011)

hrmmm no one like em.....


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## boothcreek (Feb 5, 2011)

They would be considered wild game and many states don't allow them to be kept.
I would assume that they are copper sensitive like any other sheep, and from what I have heard much more prone to contracting disease from domestic sheep.
Your best bet would be to find a trophy Ranch that offers Bighorn Sheep Hunts and ask them where they source their Rams from. 
I know White elk Ranch keeps a number of north American native hoofstock for trophy hunting and breed them themselfs. They may be able to help you out.
I know they do keep Bighorns and they are several thousand $ per lamb.
My goal is to purchase some of their Transcaspian Urials and Nubian Ibex one of these years(when I win the lottery or get really lucky at the stock market )

I hope this info helps,
Anna


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## patandchickens (Feb 6, 2011)

I am wondering, just to check, whether the o.p. really means bighorn sheep in the sense of the wild American species which I agree with the previous poster is likely to require licensing to keep as a wild animal although I believe some game ranches keep them to sell to trophy hunters...

... or whether it is possible that they mean "sheep with big horns" in a more general sense, particularly the european mouflon and all its various domesticated crosses, which look fairly bighorn-sheep-like and are most certainly kept domestically.   http://www.unitedhornedhairsheepassociation.org/

Pat


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## cattlecait (Feb 6, 2011)

If you can't track down any reasonably priced Big Horns, there are a couple of domestic options bred for hunting. 

The American Blackbelly is derived from crosses of the Barbados Blackbelly and Big Horns, they're smaller and slimmer but they have the big curved horns.

Also, Soay sheep do look a lot like tiny Big Horns, and I've heard people will pay to hunt them.


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## boothcreek (Feb 6, 2011)

Mouflons are nice Sheep, thats for sure, I love mine but heck they can jump 6 ft up straight without taking a run at it.
Mine free Range with my American Black Bellies outside of the rut(around here thats in October) and do well, my ewe is extremely jumpy and if the herding instinct wasn't so strong she would have been gone months ago..... the ram is pretty cool in comparison but still jumpier then my ABBs. To handle these guys and any of the Wild Sheep you need enclosed handling facilities because they can climb up any wall/fence to get away.

Bottle Raised Mouf ewes make great pets tho. 
Still the coppersensitivity is the same as domestics.

Any of the domestic throphy Sheep breeds like Desert Painteds, Desert Sands, Texas Dahl, Black Hawaiian, American Black Bellies and whatever else inbetween(whatever doesn't fit the other categories is labeled a Corsican) are also copper sensitive. They are all pretty much just like domestic sheep, maybe a bit more jumpy but that is about it.

PS: American Black Bellies are derrived from Barbados blackbellies X  Mouflon, not bighorn sheep. None of the Domestic breeds derrived from crossing with bighorns and only bighorn crosses I have seen so far are either Alaskan DallXBighorn or StoneXBighorn.


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## cattlecait (Feb 6, 2011)

boothcreek said:
			
		

> PS: American Black Bellies are derrived from Barbados blackbellies X  Mouflon, not bighorn sheep. None of the Domestic breeds derrived from crossing with bighorns and only bighorn crosses I have seen so far are either Alaskan DallXBighorn or StoneXBighorn.


Thank you for the correction! It came out of a book, but this book has been wrong on some other things too


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## boothcreek (Feb 6, 2011)

No worries. I got some books like that too...... 
My ultimate goal is to own many wild sheep species from all over the world one day, so I researched everything to death.
And the trophy type domestics I find just plain interesting and researched everything about them as well.

If it were legal i would love to keep the north American sheep species, but where I live that is a no go! Oh well, I can take a 10 min drive and watch wild bighorn sheep from the car for hours on end, i guess i have to contend with that.


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