I think the Priour has as pure an Afghan Urial as there are in Texas. If you look at the ones Clay Pope's hunters shot (in my original post) they have the classic Afghan Urial look ....maybe the Priour's rams are 100% pure...maybe they are "almost pure." Who knows.

Sheep breed with any other sheep around them, so even in the wild you may have some interbreeding.

Enter the Fannin Sheep debate

Do we really want to go there .... :-)

On a side note, aren't there two different places owned by Priour or something like that with two different Afghan herds?

All the rams I saw was at the main Priour, they didn't have a single hint of a saddle patch at all and they were in their winter coats.

Priour got his original stock from the zoo that got them from their native country. They will not sell any ewes period. All of their breeders at the big ranch have a saddle patch right now. The other ranch those animals came from the big ranch and were put in there years ago. I think at some time they have sold young rams but no ewes. The rest of what you see out there is a red sheep female bred to a transcaspian male. When you breed this it is 1/2 then they breed back to pure transcaspian Male and you have 3/4 so on and so forth. A lot of people do this with the cheaper ewes on goat and sheep species and try to breed back to almost pure which is fine. For example a nubian Ibex is not a huge bodied animal yet I see lots of larger bodied animals being passed off as pure.
Mouflon is a small bodied sheep with a small tail and I can tell when you get a bigger bodied sheep with a longer tail it has been bread with a corsican.
You can see all kinds of TX dall corsicans blacks etc… bred to the transcaspian around now. TT does a lot of this I believe.
The pictures Kobus posted I can tell these are red sheep transcaspian cross and there are a lot of these floating around in Texas. You see how their horns come up to their eyes? That is a transcaspian urial trait not an afghan trait. Look at the afghan on any of the sheep I have shot or from the prior. Now this last post from Tony with the ram from wild sheep his horns do not come up drastically nor do the com up much at all I think its the angle of the picture. The ones I have shot or guided and the one that Kodiak shot look like the picture I think wouldn't you agree?
But I have seen and had people send me pictures of what they are calling pure and charging big money for and I wouldn't buy it nor would I have a hunter shoot it unless I told them this is a cross. I have seen where people have griped about what others are calling a mouflon, transcaspian , afghan, red sheep, and armenian. Some of these rams or most of them are not cheap rams and when people pass off crap or junk for something it isn't I can tell I think there are quite a few here that can tell. I can post pictures of each breed and show the characteristics
The original pictures tony posted top 2 pics first one I would say those rams are rams that possibly cross with transcaspian their horns come up towards their eyes second picture looks more like an afghan Next 2 pics are my rams I guided I think they look like Afghans. The next 2 pictures transcaspiand red sheep mix probably at the 50% level. They a have a little larger body frame and their horns flair up and they have the very dark black mane typical of the red sheep.
Okierifleman I took him and his guide on that hunt and we shot a mouflon as well and an armenian Mouflon. Which white elk buys his armenians from where I hunt them.
Kodiak shot his on the priour looks like an afghan.
The three Kobus posted their horns come up to their eyes I wouldn't have shot that as an afghan I would have called it a transcaspian cross.
the last one I shot I think it looks like an afghan.
And yes in the wild these sheep can interbreed and over lap thats why I am saying the very first picture those rams have more of a transcaspian characteristic that the afghan characteristic. I don't care where you hunt or with who you hunt. I just know when you hunt with me I take a lot of pride in the sheep and goats we shoot.
Clay Pope

Thanks for clearing it up sir! If you have the time I wouldn't mind seeing pictures of the sheep species and their characteristics

Clay,
Thanks for sharing.

That said, as was posted by Txnrog, he suggested we go look at the photos from the native countries. If you go to the SCI top 10 page for Asia (not North America Estate or our US Texas High Fence hunts) you will see the follow photos for the top 4 rams .. and we see horns that curl.

My point is, there is a ton of conflicting information about Afghan Urial sheep and what a "pure" (and I use that word tongue in cheek) Afghan Urial is suppose to look like.

No there is no doubt about that but I am hunting in Texas not Asia and if you look at the wild sheep pic that u posted the afghan has a more rounded horn. If I went to asia and hunted them I wouldn't shoot one that turned in and up to his eyes. As far as body color goes Texas is hot and those mountains are not. If you want to shoot a more pure looking animal I think there is somewhere that has a very nice look here in Texas and I have shot some nice ones I think. If you want to shoot a transcaspian cross and pay transcaspian price for it I have no problems because thats what most are trying to do. Afghan is half the cost of transcaspian here. in your original post I would rather shoot the two I guided over the bottom two pictures what do you think? The record books will take anything and are not that particular. I had a hunter shoot a very large red sheep with me years ago and he took it to a master measurer for SCI and it went no 2 as an armenian to me I don't like that but it happens. I don't know to each his own .
Clay

Clay,

I started the post because I was originally looking for a large (close to 40") Red Sheep and an outfitter in South Texas was advertising what I thought looked to be a Red Sheep (with a lot of Transcaspian Urial traits) as an Afghan Urial. So I id a little research as I had thought that the Afghan Urial sheep were suppose to look like the ones your hunters shot on the Priour (recall our original emails where I inquired about Red Sheep or a Red Sheep x Transcaspian Urial). In fact it was your post and our discussion that actually made me consider adding an Afghan Urial ram to my "bucket list."

So my point is that there is a lot of conflicting information out there..... it's that simple.

After all that I have read I decided it all boils down to what you like and whether you think that the price of the hunt is fair.

BTW, this was the ram that got me all fired up about wanting to shoot a big Red Sheep.....and yes I know that this one shows a lot of Transcaspian Urial traits....but he's a beast!

Thats a beautiful ram and I tell guys a red sheep doesn't get that big of horns unless it is bred with a transcaspian. There are a lot of 50% animals out there and most people pawn them off as red sheep because they look the part for the most part. One of my places that raises red sheep that he took great pride in having pure red sheep never could get them over mid 30s and all these big reds have been coming into the record books so even he did the same thing he bought himself a 3/4 or better transcaspian and put it in with his red sheep to compete. I don't care and neither do the record books but if I know something is a cross I tell my hunter. There are a lot out there that do not. If I wanted to shoot a red sheep and was in your shoes as the hunter that would be a toad a beast and some wouldn't know it was crossed nor would they care he is beautiful. I would sell him as a transcaspian red sheep cross though then what you did with him as far as record book is up to you. I think I shoot some pretty nice rams and I look at prices and I think I have super competitive pricing. Where can you go shoot a pure transcaspian over 40 for $13500.00 not too many places and I have them. I have some monster pure european mouflon he is like the picture you posted but it may be another year before we shoot him. I have shot some monster afghans If I had scored and put several of these in the books we took the measurements there would have been several in the top 5-10. This past year we took 5 armenians that would have scored in the top 10 that we never put in. Its hard for me to compete with the reds when this goes into the reds and I would guess they paid more than 3500-4500 for him? did they? We shot the new record free range axis this year he will go into the books he was scored by a master measurer I charged my hunter $2500.00 for a 3 day hunt. I saw on here another one similar size sell for $5000.00. I think we consistently shoot nice animals and if you want to hunt with us that is awesome we would love to have y'all.
Clay

Clay,
If I remember correctly I was told that the price on that "Red Sheep" was $5500 including guide fees and lodging/food ....which I thought was a very fair price...but that was about 2 years ago. He measured 41" and change and I am amazed he wasn't broomed off.

What would you guys call these two rams? Thanks, I'm trying to learn!!!!

Baker

In my opinion these are Red Sheep with an Armenian Mouflon look (remembering that Red sheep are a hybrid between an Armenian Mouflon and a Transcaspian Mouflon so they can favor one parents traits or the other)

Baker,
You better be careful..... first you start to learn...then you want to hunt them. I think those Axis and Blackbuck are going to get some company.

^I agree 100%.

I did the same mistake many, many, many years ago. Shot an Armenian Mouflon, ended up being 21 inches, guide and owner told me that's as big as they get and I took it home. Found out a lot later that the sheep wasn't even two years old.....

Didn't research ahead, outfitter said on phone that they are going to be much smaller then a regular European Mouflon, so for years I thought what I shot was as big as they could get and anything else that was bigger was not pure.

Thanks for the replys guys, you can't tell from this photo because these sheep were over 200 yards away (they are wild as hell) but body wise they look like small animals. I'm planning a hunt for next May-June but I haven't landed on a target animal yet! I may just go and see what I see. Baker

Baker,
Most of the Mouflons are small in body size (probably under 100 pounds) ....The Transcaspian Urials have bigger body size which is why people cross them with other breeds...that and the horns...Afghan Urials are small (again 100 pounds)....the Red Sheep usually are somewhere in between. Check out the link below for a basic introduction to the wild sheep breeds.

http://www.wildsheep.org/sheep/international.htm

A lot of guys in texas put there armenians in with their red sheep and lump them as red sheep and they cross up and can have horns with either characteristic. The armenians are usually a little cheaper than the red sheep so you have to be careful. Or at least I charge less for armenians than I do for red sheep. My ranches keep them separate. The ones above have armenian Horns. We shoot some armenians that are 30.
Clay

PBGSO, do you have any pictures of your Armenian and Red Sheep?

PBGSO's website

http://www.huntsintexas.com/

Couple of nice armenians

http://www.wildlifebuyer.com/detail.asp?id=4737&n=10-AFGHAN-URIAL

Here is a so called Afghan they are selling on Wildlife Buyer....

Common Name: Afghan Urial

Scientific Name: Ovis vignei cycloceros [bocharensis]
Location: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and possibly Iran

Generally a small sheep (around 100 pounds) which often has a white and black neck ruff similar to the Transcapian Urial.

Here is a link showing pictures of Afghan Urial rams at the Kabul Zoo from 1971 ( also attached the picture). Apparently it is also referred as a Afghanistan Red Sheep. This is from the animal's home range so it should be representative.

So this all goes back to the discussion as to how much variation there can be in a wild sheep species (particularly given the wide home range of Afghan Urials). So trying to stay within some strict "definition" of what a species should look like based on a population of one specific Texas Ranch and not allowing any deviation may be a bit too restrictive.

http://www.biolib.cz/en/image/id177339/