Quote:
Originally Posted by Lr1000
I'm not sure I totally get what your saying. I'm no scientist however I see a lot of lambs and ewes all over the place. These may be getting bread by young Rams or maybe by old Rams either way I don't see how their age make a difference how big the offspring will be. I don't believe the 8-12 year old Rams have super sperm over the 5-7 year old rams. Yes it would be nice to see more old Rams every trip, but at what point is ESRD going to stop taking and start giving.
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It is not that the genes are different in the age class but that the breeding status is determined by horn mass. The bigger the head gear, the more the ram passes on his genetics. On top of this the sooner a ram becomes a heavy participant in the rut, the shorter his life expectancy on average. The mortality of that age class go way up. So not only are we killing the 5-7 year old in hunting season we are indirectly shortening the lifespan of the sub legal Rams as they become the main breeding males due to a lack of older Rams. There are other undesirable effects of young Rams doing most of the breeding. The large numbers in that age class will relentlessly pursue those females and wear them down trying to breed them. That's what I believe happens anyway. Hope I explained my thinking on that somewhat clearly.