The Year Of The Ram: A Ballsy Breakout By Da Boys

Same homestead, different year, different animal deciding the fence was more of a suggestion than a rule.

This time it was two rams — and I mean two extremely well-endowed rams, the kind where you understand immediately why they'd been kept in their own separate pen in the first place — who had busted loose and gone to go "socialize" with the entire flock of sheep, plus one alpaca who clearly had not signed up for any of this.

I pulled in to find the whole yard in chaos. Tempers were up everywhere — rams squaring off, sheep scattering, the alpaca giving everybody a look like it wanted a transfer to a different farm. And of course it was raining, because nothing on this job happens in pleasant weather. By the time I got out of the truck I was already ankle-deep in mud, watching two rams with their priorities very clearly in order ignore every attempt I made to get their attention.

You can't out-muscle a ram any more than you can out-muscle a pig, but rams are a different kind of stubborn — less "escape artist," more "extremely motivated and not interested in your schedule." I texted the owners an update, and got back, completely seriously, "just pick them up." Easy for them to say from another continent. These were not small animals. These were two fully grown rams with the weight and the attitude to match, and "just pick them up" was not happening.

What did happen was a bucket of food. Turns out two rams with their priorities elsewhere will still drop everything for a snack. I lured both of them step by step, bucket held just out of reach, all the way back across the yard and into the paddock — outsmarted, not overpowered.

The real fix was the fence. Whatever had given way wasn't holding two rams with that much main on their minds, so I patched the gap with scraps of hog wire — not pretty, but plenty sturdy enough to keep the boys exactly where they needed to be until the owners got home and could put in something more permanent.

Every homestead's got its own version of this story. Some years it's fifteen pigs. Some years it's two rams with big plans and bad timing. Either way, the job's the same: notice fast, stay calm, and get everybody back where they belong before it turns into a bigger mess than mud.

— Jack Riordan, Oregon Farm Hand