Sheep falls/tumbles?

[Coveyleader]

I know mountain goats tend to take a tumble the majority of the time messing them up more times than not. Anyone experience this with sheep?

 

[Rackmastr]

As a part time taxidermist, yep it happens quite a bit. Some worse than others.

I’ve been lucky with my 2 stones and wife’s bighorn. Nothing major at all

 

[wyosteve]

My first bighorn rolled about 300 yards but made it through unscathed. Actually saved me 300 yards of climbing!!

 

[DMiller6868]

Saw a video where a Dall fell so far it completely severed the head off the body by the time it was done falling down the mountain

 

[S-3 ranch]

Saw a video where a Dall fell so far it completely severed the head off the body by the time it was done falling down the mountain

Yeah I saw a video of a Marco Polo do a long & steep tumble and completely shattering 1/2 the horns like splinter bamboo, ruined the whole head

 

[cbeard64]

It can happen but there’s really no need to even think about it unless it becomes a possibility when the shot presents itself.

 

[Coveyleader]

I had a ram at 25 yds on pretty moderate open slope terrain. First arrow hit him and he was just standing there gushing out. I shot again, hit him real tight to the shoulder and he took off down hill, and fell off a 20-30 cliff (grassy) and landed on rock that acted like a splitting mall and took his whole horn off. I couldn't believe it.


I called my taxidermist and let him know what happened. He thought the horn just popped as this is pretty common, but I told him it popped alright, right off his head!


Pic at kill site. The break was like a puzzle piece and went right back together.

 

[30338]

My gosh what a beautiful mount he made. Great story and ram.

 

[Blockcaver]

That is wild…never saw one the whole bone broke off at the skull line. Fortunately you found the pieces!

My Stone tumbled down about 200 yards…thought he might go 3 or 4 times that far but he got hung up in some low bushes. No damage at all, but had to pack him back up plus another half a day to get to my backpack camp on the other side of the mountain.

 

[Coveyleader]

It made taking a field photo of the ram a little weird, especially all alone. It's too bad, as he was a really nice one.

Funny, I had the broke off horn in the bottom of my pack on the way out. Not your typical glory walk out with a big ram skull hanging off the back that was for sure. Lets just say a lot of photos of the rams right side.

In the end, it turned out great, and it's a pretty good story as mentioned above, not many rams get busted off like this.

 

[Coveyleader]

One last thing on this ram. He was in the cliffs for days, almost a week before he got out of them following some ewes. I never went at him as I didn't want him to fall. FIgures, shoot him in a nice grassy area and he still got messed up.

Here is was sleeping with the ladies.

 

[Coveyleader]

Looking at it from afar, maybe it wasn't as gentle of a slope ha!

 

[Blockcaver]

Sheep in the steep! Very cool photos.

 

[BC Alpine Hunter]

My first stone sheep took a bit of a beating. It was a 200 yard shot from above him as he was bedded in a cliff band. At the report of the shot I caught a glimpse of him falling out of sight. I wasn’t completely aware of what was directly under him as I didn’t have that view. When I got down to him I discovered he had fallen a few hundred yards onto a large boulder field.

He wasn’t what I envisioned walking up to my first ram would be like lol. He was missing a horn and had a hole in his shoulder the size of a large dinner plate. Luckily I was able to find the fractured horn not too far above him. I was hesitant to even cape him out but my hunting partner assured me a good taxidermist could work his magic. He was correct as you would never know looking at the shoulder mount.

 

[carter33]

Curious if anyone knows how durable/breakable sheep horns are relative to mt goat?

I haven’t seen a sheep take a nasty tumble yet but have watched two goats take nose dives. The worser of the two took a hell of a free fall and I thought the horns were in trouble for sure, I wash shocked to see them both in great shape.

 

[jhm2023]

My last sheep took a pretty good fall. When he hit the bottom, he exploded sending the insides over 50 feet in most directions and his spine was completely snapped in half. Somehow, all the meat was perfectly fine. The hide, not so much.