"No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star." ~ Edwin Hubbell Chapin


Photographed on Parker Bluffs, North of Roosevelt Lake, in the Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

Desert bighorns have a long lambing season. It begins in December and ends in June, with some variation by geographic elevations and temperature differences . A few lambs are even born during the summer as well. Mating can last from July to December. Their gestation time lasts about 174 days. They will have from 1-3 lambs. The females will choose a steep and safe area for the birth and raising of the lambs. The lambs are able to quickly follow their mother after only a week. Within a few weeks the lambs gather in small bands of their own, and search out their mothers only to suckle. They are completely weaned by 4-6 months.