[Jacob-list] crow for dinner

[Linda]

I honestly don't know.  Wish I did.

Dave said Junco's behaviour seemed alot like our cat's behaviour when I buy the kind of catfood she doesn't like.  She 
looks at it and swipes my leg.  I have no idea how a pound kitten could turn out so picky, but that's the way she is.  
Since Junco grew up being familiar with people, perhaps his lack of fear had made him bold, but his personality (or his 
age) has kept him from feeling the need to totally annihilate the competition.  I doubt that he saw me as any sort of 
competition or he would have done a serious charge.  I tend to think that he has come to associate people with food as 
he was raised that way.  He was in a biblical movie once where he played an old time sheep (type casting, I'm sure).  
He's abit food focused - he will literally eat anything.  I tend to think his behaviour was more food oriented than 
sexually oriented.  I read somewhere that grain feeding rams can very easily lead to more aggressive rams.  I believe 
that was in Ingrid's book, but I may be wrong. In any case, it does make alot of sense.

Our first ram - before we had Jacobs, was pretty mild and we ran him with the ewes all year for two years.  Never a 
problem until I had one of the ewes cornered and then he got me good.  

We've had two just-down-right-mean rams.  The first one turned out to not produce to our standards, so he went.  The 
second produced some wonderful lambs.  For some reason, most of his lambs were ewes and their outgoing personalities 
have been a delight in his ewe daughters.

I would love to hear thoughts on what does cause aggressive behaviour.  I do expect my rams to be rams - not little 
weenie burgers, but I wonder just what factors might be the difference between a normal testosterone infused ram and 
one that is downright dangerous.

Linda

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 05:58:21 -0400, Susan J Martin wrote:
>Linda's story is somewhat familiar.....I've had a similar situation. Anecdotal
>stories from women with both male sheep and goats seems to indicate a link
>between aggressive animal behavior and female hormones. Is that really what is
>going on here?
>
>Sue Martin Stonecroft Manor Lititz, PA

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