Almond's Big Makeover

Earlier this week, Almond looked like this:

First, a little background about Shetland sheep and horns.  We get asked all the time variations of the same question: when are you going to dehorn your sheep?  Shetland rams are supposed to have horns and removing their horns would significantly decrease their value.  Good horns (like Gunpowder's) are something we really want to see on our male sheep. 



Really bad horns are obvious when the males are still small.  Although Almond's fleece is wonderful, we castrated him so that he would not pass on the genetics for bad horns. We've been keeping an eye on his horns.  We decided we needed to trim them in order to save his life (and I'm not exaggerating), something we may not chosen to do if his fleece were not so fantastic.

Almond had his horns trimmed today, and now he looks something like this:  (Sorry that Pecan is in the way!)