Ewes young guys ain't got nothin' to worry about

Hi there, EP peeps,

I just thought I'd post an abstract of a study I found kind of amusing. I subscribe to eTOCs from the journal "applied animal behavior science" (which is generally not that useful, but whatever, I checked it off when I was signing up for a bunch of eTOCs). Anyway, I think it was the "sexual performance" bit in the title that piqued my curiosity. So see below for an abstract I found kind of amusing.

(To any self-conscious rams out there: apparently your "sexual performance"--how was that measured, I wonder? (I'm not curious enough to actually read the paper, however)--doesn't matter, just your age. )

A note on ram preference by oestrous ewes: Influence of rams' age and sexual performance

Ewes in oestrus, besides being receptive to rams, develop an active search for them. We performed two experiments to determine if oestrous ewes prefer: (1) high or low sexual-performance rams, and (2) 2-year-old or aged (>8-years-old) rams. In the first experiment, the preference of ewes for rams with high or low sexual performances was compared in 16 tests. In the second experiment, 17 tests were performed comparing ewes'’ preference for aged rams (>8-years-old) or young rams (2-years-old). In each test, two rams were tied at equal distances from the point of entrance of the ewe, with a maximum mobility for each ram of 2 m. The first approach to a ram, the quantity of approaches toward each ram (less than one body length), and the total time that the ewe remained near each ram were registered during 5 min. Oestrous ewes did not display any preference according to sexual performance of rams, but spent significantly more time (P = 0.02), and did it in more tests (P = 0.025), with young than with aged rams. Ewes also tended to approach first (P = 0.07), and more times in more tests (P = 0.06), to young than to aged rams. We conclude that ram's sexual performance seems not to influence oestrous ewes preference, and that ewesÂ’ prefer young (2-years-old) rather than aged rams (>8-years-old).


P. S. By "did it", in there, on first read, I thought, "They're using the euphemism "did it" in a (semi-) academic journal?!?!" (Is that what they mean?)