Reasonably priced Ibex hunt

I'm looking for a Ibex hunt that's reasonably priced. Between 5k-7k.
Thanks in advance.

These days you are hard pressed to find anything under 5 digits...especially if you want a real ibex.

The only goat species you are going to get in Texas that aren't arm and leg are Catalina's or Hybrid Ibex...the latter of which in most cases is just a generation short of becoming the former.

White Elk Ranch shows Persian Ibex for $7.5K ..have no idea about the quality of the hunt or the animals but you can call and see


Trophy Fee's
•Afghan Urial $6,900
•Transcaspian Urial $14,900
•Nubian Ibex $12,500
•Persian Ibex $7,500
•Hybrid Ibex $4,500
•European Bison $7,500
•Yak $4,500
•Markhor $12,500
•Bighorn Sheep $30,000
•Alaskan Dahl Sheep $30,000
•Stumberg Sheep $6,900
•Armenian Mouflon $4,900
•Stone Sheep $30,000
•Red Sheep $4,900

I've never really seen a pure Persian Ibex in the US except for the herd in the Florida Mtns. Now that looks like a true hunt. I'd love to get drawn someday.

I've seen pics of White Elks Persians. They are not pure seemingly, but they are better then the ones I see In texas that are a generation short of crossing with a goat of belonging in grandpas barn.

On the other hand, I saw a pic of a great persian taken at W4 and another at Morani. They looked pure, but morani wants 12-20k!
Esshhh!

there are plenty of "real ibex" you can find to hunt under 5 digits...ones that are not hybirds. send me a message pitchfork.

PM sent Aaron

One generation out of my Grandfathers barn?

Oh and Kobus I have been approached by White Elk ranch about purchasing my Ibex even though they are only one generation out of my Grandfathers barn.

Kobas or AxisMaster, Whatever handle you are using these days, you negative comments about people such as Thompson Temple, the White Elk Ranch and hybrids only serve to highlight how immature and ignorant you really are. It seems that you will post on any thread you can ..not to respond to the original poster's question, but to get on your little soapbox and malign the existence of any hybrid and the people who raise them. Maybe some day you will grow up.

Pitchfork,
Here are two pics of Persian Ibex off of the White Elk Ranch...look pretty nice to me. I am sure that Aaron and Don can recommend a place in Texas for you to find what you want.

Is it just me or is Kobus all over the map here? I'm not an ibex guy, but it sounds like he goes from " no decent Persians in Texas, to some really awesome ones...

I think Kobus is Hillary Clinton. Don't let anyone tell you that real pure ibex are created by ranchers in Texas.

And thank you all got the info minus the negative input from bogus I mean Kobus.

there is a huge misnomer about ibex...between ranches selllng domestic goats as "ibex", to people who think they know far more than they do. here are some of my ibex that I'd be curious to get the a certain professionals opinion on.

Aaron, My opinion doesn't really count for a lot, but I'd have no problem shooting the big male in the top photo. I know nothing about ibex first hand...all just from reading and photos...but that male does appear to have the markings that you see in a Persian Ibex....so my opinion is that it's a handsome goat and looks to me like a Persian Ibex. But what the heck do I know.

therancher, Kobus is some kid (I do mean kid not an adult) who fancies himself an expert on sheep and goats and cannot pass an opportunity to get on his little soapbox and expound on the how hybrid sheep (as opposed to pure Mouflons, Urials, etc) and hybrid ibex are a threat to the preservation of these species....and he vilifies anyone who breeds hybrids intentionally (dispite the fact that people are out there who want to hunt them and cannot afford some of the purebreds). His expertise appears to be based on the fact he once hunted the Priour Ranch and shot an Afghan Urial.

I stand corrected...he is a super nice one.
He would be a great trophy and a look to try to get to breed for!
If only there was more like him!

You never stop do you!

[quote=Kobus]If only there was more like him! There are

Are they wild?

I am no ibex expert, but I have been to the Florida mountains 3 times in the past 3 months (once for a week) and have seen hundreds of those ibex.....and if you put the ones don posted in a police lineup with the ones from the Floridas Mountains, I wouldn't be able to tell which was which. Hopefully Don's smell better than the florida ones do, haha that was the only way we found the one my buddy shot.....follow the smell.

And actually the one aaron put a pic of looks like the twin brother to the one my buddy shot.

the one I posted has Florida mountian ibex in him, supposedly.

Ha. If Kobus is axismaster, then it explains a lot. I remember him bragging about the great mounts he had, only to later reveal that he hadn't shot them but his dad had bought them from a taxidermist.

Kobus = AxisMaster

Hey I had a question on that but nobody ever answered that I saw....another one of my friends was guiding another guy while we were hunting. His hunter shot one and the put the balls on dry ice and took them to a breeder imediately in Texas. Does this kind of thing work? If so, that is pretty awesome and a good way to get some pretty aweome genetics. DIdn't know if it was a long shot, or if it actually had a good chance of AI'ing some nannies.

should work no less than AI'ing anything else Id think.

I'm thinking about starting a herd of pure mountain goats. here's my breeder.

Nice one Aaron

Only one...the Grants. I'm selling it to Realistic. More or less an investment.
Everything else I have put a bullet behind, enjoyed the experienced, and lived my life.

I'm selling the Grants more or less besides that because I don't have any experience with it.
But yes I do have some great mounts! All of them of which I have taken :]

Those are some quality genetics. He looks happy BTW!

Kobus some words of advice from an old man. If you don't want to compliment someone don't say anything at all. You can say things to friends that may not be taken out of context but saying it on here to people you really don't know will probably be taken the wrong way. You have a hopefully long life ahead of you so don't make any more enemies than you have to. Take it or leave it that is just my opinion.

Understood sir.

In 2010 my buddy drew the once in a lifetime rifle tag in the floridas. We killed his billy on the first afternoon. The bottom billy we had him at 30 yards and passed. It was an awesome hunt. Ibex are amazing animals.

Wow! What a beauty!

great pics, thanks for sharing

They don't look like that inTEXAS!!

That bottom pic is awesome, and the billy your buddy shot is huge. How long were the horns?

I'm still trying to figure out how I could have passed on the bottom billy.

Thanks for sharing

I was thinking the same thing, the bottom is over 40 inches for sure

I think the one he shot was 46".

LOVE IT... bred pre-mounted

Before the hunt started my buddy decided he wanted to shoot one that had flared out horns. We seen that bottom billy at 700 yards and walked right to us. After that picture he layed down at 70 yards for 2-3 mins. It was hard to let him walk. My buddy shot his at 70 yards. That hunt was a blast.

46 is a beast

Yessir he was a nice one. Heres a little clip of it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvGAZaa18FQ

great video..those Ibex are impressive

Wow!!!

awesome video

Some very good Ibex. And to see two like that on a hunt is amazing. Someone earlier said that you don't see them like that in Texas. The reason is that no one lets them live the amount of years it takes to grow that long. The longest one I have sold was about 40" and was 6 years old.

This is the one that was close to 40" at 6 years old.

don,
I am also betting yours (and those on Texas ranches) as better feed and not as sleek.... and I think that may also come into play when you look at the ones from New Mexico. They look slimmer in the body.

At what age does the dark shoulder stripe appear?

Beautiful animal Don, I think I remember that photo. Baker

Found the information I was looking for Ibex Info

I was surprised at the comment on the knobbing ..I think that the knobbing is a desirable look, but what do I know.

Nubians do not have a shoulder stripe.

Nubian

Yes sir I knew about the Nubians. I was not sure if the Persian Ibex billy's had the shoulder stipe from birth or it was from maturity.

they can develop them young. here is a a pic of a billy at around 7 months.

this is him today in his winter coat. just about a year old.

There is no shoulder strips because they are not Persians ibex. There only Persian in Texas. Where's Kobus when you need him? 😃

stag man what is this?

Very beautiful animal !! Closest I have seen to Persian/Bezoar markings. How old is he?

LMAO

he will be 3 this spring. has genes from the Florida mountains. my goal in the next few years is to have persians that resemble those of New Mexico. I will likely be selling all my nubians once I get there. this was his daddy.

Aaron,

At some point, maybe when you reach your breeding goal, you should post in a separate thread how you acquired New Mexico Florida Mountain genetics. I suspect there is a good story there. (Testicles on ice???)

I also see where Rickey Hunt is also breeding Ibex.....do you and he have the same Persian Ibex genetics? just curious.

Good luck Aaron. I would think it would be tough to get the right horn structure and markings of a bezoar.

stag man i think it's completely doable. in 3-4 years we will know.

rickey hunt and I are very good friends. we have some of the same blood lines in some of our animals yes but for the most part no.

A google search reveals no native North African or Middle Eastern Nubian ibex with a shoulder stripe.

This would include live animals in Israel, Sudan and Egypt.

Roo,
I think these guy all know that.

They are talking about Persian Ibex (Bezoar Ibex) which have the stipe. Supposedly the Ibex that were released in New Mexico's Florida Mts (from Iran of all places) are as close as there are to Persian Ibex in the US.... and what the breeders want to do is get as close to "pure' as they can with the available genetics and selective breeding.

well said tony. good genetics is crucial. spending the time and money on something like this, knowing it's a slow process, is rough but to get an end result we have in mind will make it worth it...I think. lol

Lots of folks creating some very nice looking hybrid Ibex. Still have yet to see a pure persian ibex (aka Bezoar goat) in Texas. Think it will be really difficult to 'recreate' the sharp front keel with the long knots at the joints because you have to use a Nubian/Siberian/alpine ibex to get the knots - any of which are on a little different branch of the Ibex tree and have a fundamentally different horn structures from bezoars. You may be able to get something with good color and knots, but truly impossible to hybridize back to the original.

Just watch

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”
Theodore Roosevelt

On a semi-related note, I watched a documentary a while ago about to brothers (zoologists) in Germany around the time of the Nazi Party and Hitler. Their goal was to do selective breeding and re-create the extinct wild cattle of Europe. After years and years they more or less claimed success.

"Heck cattle originated in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s in an attempt to breed back domestic cattle to their ancestral form: the aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius).[3] In the first years of the Weimar Republic, the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck independently started their extensive breeding-back programmes.[4] Heinz was the director of the Hellabrunn Zoological Gardens in Munich and Lutz of the Berlin Zoological Gardens. Only eleven years later, just as the Weimar Republic was drawing to a close, they each announced their success.[5][6] Both brothers used a different selection of cattle breeds in their breeding-back attempts. For example, Lutz Heck (Berlin) used Spanish fighting bulls, while Heinz (Munich) did not.[2] The Berlin breed seemingly did not survive the Second World War, so all modern Heck cattle go back to the experiments of Heinz Heck in Munich."

Here is another related story.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment...es-9958988.html

Hey Aaron and others, please don't post any details about harvesting ballz, and semen transfer on here. My son has some sick idea he's gonna clone me..

Thanks in advance...

Yep. He said a clone of me would be comparable to a 52" pure Persian ibex...

I thought he was the clone!

Nah, his "knots" are all wrong, too much "striping". Length challenged as well. They just don't have "me's" in New Mexico. Texas has the purest bloodline....

moderators, is there any way to start a petition to get the rancher on the wall of shame? He needs to go to timeout.

....he does look like an old goat now that I think of it.

Sorry I am mildly retarded and didn't read the entire thing.

You should call him "Big Sexy"

that nickname is reserved for me per my wife.

Nope, that goat is way prettier than him. People drop change in his coffee cup sometimes when we go out to eat, and then they commend me for taking the homeless man out for a warm meal.

Aaron and I have been working together to find some of the better Persian genetics out there. I have learned over the years to work with what you have. Right now I am going to be adding some Cretan Ibex (sub species of Persian)this year. There are a few private breeders out there that have pure Cretan ibex. There are a few pure Persians out there that do not have Nubian Ibex in them, but they are very hard to find and very expensive when you do. This is a 3 year old billy of ours.



This is a 10 month old billy we bottle raised. Not all of them will have this good of a shoulder stripe at that age.

Rickey and Aaron you both are getting some very good looking Ibex. It really does not matter if they are pure bred or hybrid. As long as it is a good looking Ibex that somebody likes and wants that is all that counts. You could have gone to New Mexico and trapped a couple of the Ibex from there and brought them home and there would be somebody that would say they were hybrids and they are not as pure as the ones in N.M. As long as you have a good product there will be a market for them.

Thanks Don! 25 years ago when I started breeding mouflons it was the same scenario. Look today and you can see numerous breeders with some great mouflons.

Rickey,

I'm not too hung up about a sheep be "100% pure" etc...if it looks like something I want to shoot and the price is fair, and if outfitter is not intentionally misrepresenting it..that's all good.

That said, you stated "25 years ago when I started breeding mouflons it was the same scenario." Are you saying that the initial breeders had to start with Mouflons hybrids that were not "pure breeds" (forgive my use of the term "pure") and by selective breeding they ended up with the Mouflons in the USA that we have today? ...... Or are you just stating that you selectively bred pure Mouflons (as opposed to hybrids) to get a brighter saddle patch and better quality horns.

I'm just curious. I thought that most of the "advertised" pure breed Mouflons have an ancestory that goes back to zoo stock. So the start was a pure breed not a hybrid sheep.

I'm just looking for a little history lesson.

I am not answering for Rickey or anyone else but here is what I think. I doubt that any of the Sheep or Goat breeds are !00% pure as they were say 1000 years ago. Sheep and Goats will breed with the other Sheep and Goat species. There has been a lot of domesticating of both. Who is to say the Ibex in New Mexico have not been crossed with a few feral Goats from that area. Even all the sub species of Sheep from Europe and Asia have had to have mixed among them selves. Sheep and Goats are not like Blackbuck and Aoudad that only breed themselves. I may be full of it but I doubt anyone can be absolutely certain an individual Sheep or Goat of a species is pure.

We know you are prone to telling stories :-)

I get the point about "100% pure" being pretty hard to prove...my question really was around the "extent of selective breeding" that was done on the Mouflons 25 yrs ago vs having good zoo stock available to start with and just "tweaking" those sheep to superior specimens.

Tweaking as in what they are doing to WT now?

On the whitetails I think they are doing more than "tweaking" since no native whitetails would ever look like some of the deer they are producing. BTW, not saying anything negative, but just saying it's more than tweaking.

When I said "tweaking" regarding the Mouflons I was referring to where you have a good sheep and you selective breed to maintain/improve that specific look by selectively breeding for markings or better horns....but still staying within the realm of what you'd see in a superior wild species.

I think in the beginning there were a few zoo stock places, but the vast majority were of a "mouflon type", and maybe not 100% mouflon but pretty good. Selective breeding since the 1920's I think has gotten to the point where we have some mouflon in America as good as the Czech republic. Problem is they shoot them at 8 plus years in Europe, and it is pretty rare for one to live that long in Texas through disease, accidents or getting shot.

Ibex are pretty much the same way today, and the designer sheep (Stumberg) and unfortunately the Urials as well.

It cost a lot to buy pure breeding stock, and a lot less to get into it with a pure "looking" stuff and a few corsican ewes or spanish goat nannies.

In the early 1990's I had a herd of "mouflon type sheep" in New Mexico as a FFA project.

Let's see what Rickey Hunt says about his comment.

Not gonna hijack the thread again but those are some funny pics/posts. Y'all might have hurt my feelings... If I had one. ;-)

snowing here in north texas

When we started breeding mouflons there were a lot of folks saying there were no pure mouflons around. Some still say that. We started with some good zoo stock. But, not all zoo stock when it comes to sheep and ibex is pure. Back then some of the Stumbergs were crossed with mouflons (people trying to make a bigger mouflon)and some of them made their way into some zoo's as pure mouflons. We tried to avoid those crosses. Some of those rams would look just like a mouflon except their bases were too big and some did not have saddles. We had some breed characteristic that we came up with and stuck with it. As a result numerous rams were bred here that we sold that broke that 40 inch mark. Another myth is that rams or ibex from other countries are all pure. Not so. They have the same problems we have, but even worse. There are more types of domestic sheep and goats than you can shake a stick at in Europe and the Middle East.

Let me say this about ibex. When they started bringing a FEW over here there was not hardly any nannies to go around. Game ranchers bred those few and tried to keep a pure herd, but they also bred them to some of the dairy breeds. They did this because there were very few pure nannies to go around. They took the pure billy and bred him back to the hybrid daughter of his. Then he bred those daughters back to the original billy, so on. If they had not done that we would not have hardly any ibex today.

Rickey,Thanks for the background. Very informative.

Obviously Ricky and others know their stuff and many of us could stand to learn a bit from them.

I do find it interesting though that we have been able to maintain some pure Nubian, Siberian, and alpine ibex herds in Tx, but the Persians seemed to get lost. My only speculation is that they didn't have the same value when the industry was younger, and when you cross a Nubian to a dairy goat or Spanish goat and breed back, you get something that approximates a persian.

a lot of people will call a goat that somewhat looks the part a persian. it seems that the fall back name for ibex that aren't nubian are also called persian. we are working hard to change that and in a few years I am confident you will see persian ibex that people will be astounded with. stay tuned!!

Flip the coin to the other side....Maybe the story with the Persians is just the opposite...they did have value and people breed them to other goats species nannies because they wanted to get a hybrid they could sell which had a Persian look...sort of like what is being done a lot now with Transcaspian Urials.