Bighorn Sheep Somehow Climbed onto ROOF, Scaring the Family in Colorado

The clip-clop sound of hoofbeats on a wintery rooftop in December is enough to inspire Christmas joy and wonder in even the Scrooge-iest of souls. But for one family in Colorado, those sounds signaled something a little different.

This was no reindeer. This week, officials from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Northeast Region, received a call from the family in Boulder County informing them that a visitor had landed upon their roof.

He was a bighorn sheep — and his presence up there came as quite the surprise.“It’s not something you see every day,” Kara, a spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told The Dodo. “[These animals] are native to Colorado, but they’re not really something you see on people’s roofs a lot.”

Indeed, it was odd. It’s unclear exactly how or why the sheep decided to hop up onto the family’s home, but Kara said such unpredictable behavior is par for the course during their mating season.

“Male sheep — rams — act weird,” she said. “They act strangely. They’ll often just do strange things when trying to find a mate.” Unfortunately for the ram, there were no ewes to be found atop the roof, but it must have been a pretty decent lookout.

When wildlife officials arrived, he was in no rush to come down. After a few hours, the ram moved from the top of the roof to the home’s upper deck. Then it started to seem as though he didn’t know what to do next.

“We cut out a portion of the deck to give him a better line of sight,” Kara said. “Eventually, he came down from there. He was around for about a day and half, all told.” Some trail cameras were set up around the perimeter of the home to capture his departure.

As if his rooftop antics didn’t leave enough of an impression, the ram then decided to pause and mug for the camera on his way out. Kara said the ram looked healthy as he made his way back into the wild — hopefully to remain on terra firma going forward.

As for the family, Christmas hadn’t actually come early with those hoofbeats on their roof, but, in the end, they got exactly what their hearts desired most, said Kara: “They just wanted their house back.”