Big Horn Sheep in the Mountains coloring page

 Today's latest free picture on this, my coloring pages blog, is 

a Big Horn Sheep.

(All the coloring pages are free to print.)

Bighorn Sheep in the Rocky Mountains

Bighorn Sheep get their name from their large curved horns. They are ungulates, that is, hoofed mammals. They live in the high mountains of North America. These are NOT domesticated animals. They are wild animals.  They live here in Utah and in neighboring states that are also mountainous, like Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, & etc.

Bighorn sheep are herbivores that eat whatever is available, including grasses and woody shrubs. That makes them both grazers and browsers. They are ruminants, which means they have multi-chambered stomachs to process tough vegetation for digestion.

Bighorn sheep can weigh up to around 320 lbs or 160 kg. The horns on the rams add up to 40 lbs of the weight. Furing the rut the males bash horns against rivals for the right to mate with the ewes. This is a very lound echoing sound that reverbarates in the mountains. The females have horns as well, but they are tiny in comaprison to the Rams' horns. Rams have extra thick skulls to handle the collisions with other rams in the fight. The force is something like 7 times the force needed to crack a human skull. 

I want to mention something about art of nature and nature itself. It is this: Repetition with Variation. My brilliant art teacher taught me that during art class. But I also realized it is true of nature. Look at the flowering shrub. Each flower is not exactly the same size or shape as the other. They are very similar so repetition. But there are differences so variation. The horns on the ram are not exactly symmetrical. That is also accurate. No two conifers are exactly the same either. This is how I strive for my art to reflect science facts of nature. I do some stylized things in my nature drawings, for example, the grass, the conifer trees, the bushes. I CAN draw bushes with individual leaves and occasionally I do. 

I was a junior high science teacher before I had to go on disability and eventually retire. Then I started this free colroing pages blog. Today I reached a million hits on this blog or site. I don't know how many hits are bots but a lot of the hits are real people from all over the world coming to my site and printing coloring pages for them or for children they know to color. I hope I am making a difference. For me, drawing is healing and literally replaced the narcotic pain medications that I was on. Drawing a dinosaur, or animal, or magical being etc. are much better for my brain than the narcotics were. But I undestand that some poeple's pain is so extreme that narcotics is the only answer. For me drawing coloring pages, posting them here, and writng about my drawings on this blog - were very healing and still to this day distract me from the pain. I just had more throat surgery two weeks ago. Yes, I WAS on pain meds in the hospital. but I'm back on drawing to manage my pain now. 

NOTE: This drawing, in printable form, is found by clicking on the button labeled "Animals." Then jsut scroll down to the bottom of the list of titles. Have fun coloring this Bighorn Sheep Ram.