Animal behaviourist Mark Vette has worked with animals, including livestock, for more than 50 years and says rams are known to violently attack.
“Most people who have farmed at some stage would have had a ram that you’ve got to be careful of. If you turn your back on them, they’ll have a bit of a crack at you at times,” he told Newshub.
However, he said although the attacks are violent, they “aren’t normally bad enough to the point where someone’s getting killed”.
“It would be a very rare occasion for a ram to injure someone to that level, but where you can get knocked over and hurt is usually common,” Vette said.
“Getting smashed up against a wall or something, and them hitting you hard with their head, could definitely cause some serious injuries. They are a really powerful animal, so being charged at three or four times would be significant.”
He described rams as “big animals that have very hard heads”.
“It’s common to get these rogue rams that either have testosterone that is just really high, or if they haven’t socialised with humans much at all.”
Vette said the dangers of the ram attacking often come down to the breed and whether it has curly horns, or stud horns.
However, he explained that even without horns, the rams have a “very, very powerful hit”.
“The base of the horns are still there effectively, even if they don’t have visual horns,” Vette said.
He believes when it comes to ram attacks, humans aren’t designed to take that sort of impact, while “rams are designed to fight”.
“There’s a reason why farmers often use dogs – they use that technique to move them without having to get in and literally be in there with them,” Vette said.
“If you do get in a contained space with them, it’s certainly much riskier, and any big livestock could do some serious damage if they are behaving independently.”