We also enjoyed TV5 coming to the farm 2 days later on June 17th. Sunday Morning Road Trip brought Melanie Wells to the farm to see Norma (our milking cow), Champ (our 750# boar), PuNkin (newborn colt) and Walker (our ram).
Ram
- A male sheep is called a ram.
- Mulberry’s ram is a Shetland. His name is Walker.
- Rams are famous for their large, curled horns. The horns serve as a symbol of status and are used as a weapon when battling other rams over mating rights.
- Sheep have scent glands on their face (beneath their eyes) and feet (between their toes). The scent glands are used in communicating to the ewes (females) during breeding season.
- Walker is daddy to about 25 lambs at Mulberry Lane Farm each year.
Billy Goat
- A male goat is called a billy.
- Mulberry’s billy is a pygmy goat. His name is Billy Bob.
- Both the male and the female goat can have horns and beards. The horns on a goat are straight unlike the ram’s whose horns are curled.
- Billy goats have a strong musk-like odor during breeding season. The scent glands are located around the horn base and function in stimulating the does.
- Billy Bob is daddy to about 30 kid goats at Mulberry Lane Farm each year.
Rooster
- A male chicken is called a rooster.
- Mulberry’s rooster is called Corn Flake. He is named after the Corn Flake cereal box rooster.
- Roosters perform a little dance called tidbitting in which they make sounds and move their head up and down, picking up and dropping a bit of food.
- Hens prefer roosters that often perform tidbitting and have larger, brighter combs on top of their heads and large wattles, the dangly bit beneath his beak.
- Hens will lay eggs without a rooster present. However, the eggs then will not be fertile and hatch out chicks.
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