http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1676169.html

Quote :

" CHAPEL HILL -- When the North Carolina Tar Heels rush onto the football field for the season opener at Kenan Stadium, Rameses, the beloved mascot, will lead the way. Although the face-off is against the Citadel Bulldogs, it is the Heels' archrival, N.C. State University, that poses the bigger threat to a tried and blue Carolina tradition. About 60 years ago, Wolfpack livestock scientists engineered a dastardly plot that just might do away with rams like Rameses for good. f9oh6889 The late Rameses in 1995. - STAFF FILE PHOTO BY SCOTT SHARPE Buy Photo More Local & State * Game centers reach out to a broader clientele * NCSU genetics experiment could spell the end for UNC's mascot * 'Shrooms shoot through floor * Decision on Soles is handed to state * UNC system struggles with cuts * Raid nets $6 million worth of marijuana The number of horned Dorset -- a soft, wooly sheep whose rams and ewes sprout distinctive, spiraling horns -- has fallen to 10,000 worldwide, putting the horned rams on livestock conservation watch lists. A breed on the brink. So tonight, the anxious people at American Livestock Breeds Conservancy hope to make the Tar Heel faithful aware of the decline of the breed. It's not only Rameses, the 18th horned Dorset to serve as UNC mascot, that the livestock conservationists are worried about. "Once you lose a breed, you cannot get it back," said Jennifer Kendall, marketing and communications manager for the Pittsboro-based American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. The decline of the breed dates to 1949, when a horned Dorset ram on an NCSU farm sired four hornless ewes. Over the next five years, Kendall said, livestock scientists bred the ram to those four ewes and all other ewes in the flock until, in 1954, a hornless ram was born. Within two decades, 70 percent of all Dorsets were hornless, or polled, as they're called on the farm. Farmers' headache The horned sheep had caused headaches for farmers for decades. Rams and ewes would get their horns snagged in fences. Head-butts, intentional or not, could sometimes be ferocious. In fact, a head-butt ended the life of Rameses XVII, a former UNC mascot disfigured and fatally wounded by his son in April 2008. "In this day and age, the horns don't serve much purpose," Kendall said. "They might have helped them survive in the wild." But keeping the horned Dorset line going is important to Kendall and others at the livestock breeds conservancy. They worry about losing characteristics that make the Dorset popular among sheep farmers, such as their capability for lambing and multiple births year-round. Hogan tradition Rob Hogan, whose family has watched over Rameses I through XVIII on its Orange County farmland for 85 years, would hate to see the horned Dorset disappear. "They're a beautiful sheep and very nice-tempered," he said. Despite his long ties to Carolina sports, Hogan, an N.C. State alum, holds no ill will toward those who engineered the hornless Dorset. He plans to continue a tradition his family started many decades ago. Late this afternoon, he'll pull Rameses XVIII aside and coat his horns with fresh Carolina blue paint, then cover him with a blanket for a sideline show that begins before the Heels take the field at 6 p.m. He likes to toot the horns of a breed that has been a part of UNC-CH tradition for more years than he's been alive. "I feel strongly about protecting the breed," Hogan said. "

9/5/2009 12:57:59 PM

post.

9/5/2009 1:08:02 PM

Quote :

"In fact, a head-butt ended the life of Rameses XVII, a former UNC mascot disfigured and fatally wounded by his son in April 2008. "

Wait, wat?

9/5/2009 1:10:43 PM

killed by his son, like his father, before him

9/5/2009 1:18:32 PM

Isn't the current ram's original name Padro or something similar?

9/5/2009 1:21:24 PM

UNC has an Oedipus complex?

9/5/2009 1:22:03 PM

^That last ram got head-butted by the current Ram, his son.

It broke his horn off and it got all infected or something. They had to put him down.

9/5/2009 1:24:50 PM

^^He was something like that, I think they all have different names until they adopt the name of Ramses.

Quote :

"Hogan tradition Rob Hogan, whose family has watched over Rameses I through XVIII on its Orange County farmland for 85 years, would hate to see the horned Dorset disappear. "They're a beautiful sheep and very nice-tempered," he said. Despite his long ties to Carolina sports, Hogan, an N.C. State alum, holds no ill will toward those who engineered the hornless Dorset."

The Hogans are great people, they come to the vet clinic where I work in Carrboro. The kids loved Ramses at our open house at the vet clinic, well that & the face painting. I remember being the person who answered the call when they called about the last Ramses fatal injury.

9/5/2009 1:28:45 PM

And here I thought that this was about the end of the condom company of the same name...

9/5/2009 2:31:04 PM