Rameses the ram dies following injury

Rameses XVII, the blue-horned ram who led the UNC Chapel Hill football team onto the field at Kenan Stadium for the past five years, died Thursday of complications from an injury he suffered in an encounter with his own son.

Rameses was 8.

His son Pablo, 3, will take the name Rameses XVIII and succeed his father as the Carolina mascot, said keeper Rob Hogan.

Rameses and Pablo shared a field at Hogan's farm outside Carrboro. On April 13, they butted heads, as rams are occasionally wont to do. This particular collision was so jarring that it snapped one of the older ram's horns off.

"I've never had that happen out here," said Hogan, whose family has kept all the Rameses since the UNC tradition began in 1924. "I think they were just tussling, and they must have somehow hit it in just the wrong place."

The injury was serious, and infection set in. Hogan treated the ram with antibiotics and wound care, but Rameses was a fairly elderly ram and he didn't bounce back.

"On Thursday I got up before daybreak and went out to check on him, and he was doing worse," Hogan said. "It was obvious he wasn't going to make it."

Hogan summoned a vet to put the animal down, but before the vet could arrive Rameses died.

"With livestock, it's purely business," said Hogan, who raises beef cattle. "But with the rams, it's different. It's just like losing a dog you've had for 10 years."