I hope this isn't too stupid a question.....

How big (in inches) is a full curl ram? I'm looking for an affordable ram hunt for next winter and pretty much all the prices I see quoted for rams are for something like 20"-25", 25"-30", over 30", etc. or sometimes bronze, silver, gold medal. I have no idea what a 27" ram or a bronze medal ram (for example) looks like. I don't need to shoot (prolly couldn't afford anyways) one of those loop da loop, corkscrew rams I see in pics but I'm not interested in a half curl, juvenile looking one either. I'd really just be happy with a nice, average (?) mature looking specimen animal.

Hope I'm making sense here. Thanks.

OK, don't go by how long the horn looks or how wide it is. Trophy is always in the eye of the beholder. But here is how you judge them for most record book standards. 3/4 curl is where the horn just starts turning out away from the ram. That is unless we are talking about good pure Mouflon rams, in which case, only get to a 3/4 curl or just slightly over that. But the horn tip should never go outside of the width of his horn on the mouflon. A mouflon's horn generally always goes to the inside, unlike that of a Corsican, Black Hawaian, Texas Dall or Barbado sheep.

#1 Depth of the curl is more important than 3/4 or full curl. Look at how deep the horn comes down. The deeper below its chin, the better. A wide horn looks attractive to some hunters, but I have seen some that are 27" wide and 24" long on the horn get out scored by rams that were 33" with just barely over a 3/4 curl because the horn went up high off the back of the and and back instead of going more out and away from the head.

#2 Mass is always important. For record book, you want good 10"+ bases. Corsican, Black Hawaiian, and Texas Dall will get 11"+ bases sometimes and that is really good. If it has a good barbado mix in it, the mass quality generally doesn't carry over too well. Good indication of mass is when your looking at the ram head on, focus on the bases. If it looks like there is less than 1" space to fit in between the bases, the chances are he's got a good 10" base or in that general neighborhood. Then you look at how well that mass carries out on the length of the horn all the way out to the end.

Rams that we had on our program at up to a 1 year old would never be as big as 30", The bigest may have gotten to 22", maybe a little bigger than that. and it wasn't even a 3/4 curl at that point. But our program was based to put on a stronger horn with heavy mass before putting on too much length too fast. I never really got too much involved in raising the sheep and I'm out of that part of the business for good. But I do know how to judge trophy quality. If you need any help, let me konw.

Shoot me an email and I will send you some pics and better explain if needed.
info@huntingtexasexotics.com