Aoudad age?

[Aggiehuntress]

We have a bunch of aoudad that are on camera hitting both our protein feeders. How do you age an aoudad? I think most are younger rams, but some have longer beards (?) than the others. also any tips on how/where to shoot these guys. our pasture is very thick and steep. If they go to far it is hard to track them.

Thanks for the tips. Hope to go after two of them fathers day weekend

[mulie_mike]

Our winters are typically not hard enough to give them growth rings so it is very hard to accurately age them. I hunt them quite often in the west Texas area and your rams further west take quite awhile to hit that 30" plus mark. Several people in that area and biologist Ive talked to estimate a 30" ram to be in that 10 year to 12 year old range which I have confirmed with some fenced ranches that bought some as yearlings.

So an old smoothed out massive ram can be upwards or older than 12 years old but dont let there chaps/mane fool you because a 25 inch ram can have a main that drags on the ground.

Look for your darker (almost chocolate colored)rams with wrinkles. They will typically be quite a bit bigger in body size compared to the rest in the group. Look for scar or rub marks behind the shoulder from where they scratch there horns and there bases should be touching or almost touching and there horns will drop down and start to curl in. That when you know you've found a shooter. Use a good penetrating bullet and put it mid to low shoulder, they are African game so everything is tucked way upfront and they can soak up the lead.

Good luck!

[BrownMamba]

I thought my 27" ram ,(killed in May of 09) was impressive until I got my 32" (killed in Oct. of 11) from the taxidermist and hung them side by side. It's like putting a 20 something next to a 40 something yr. old. It's easy to see the youth. The Beast as I call him has scars, his skin is dropping/sagging, roman nose and he's thicker. Their are truly as different as night and day.

Hope that helps.

db