How do sheep use their horns in dominance contests?

In the context of bovids, sheep utilize their horns as the primary organs for display and combat to establish a dominance hierarchy among males.1

In species such as the bighorn sheep, males engage in dramatic, ritualized battles before the rutting season to determine social rank. These contests typically involve the following behaviors:2

• Ramming: Rams launch themselves at one another from a distance of several meters to collide head-on. This specialized fighting style, which evolved to minimize the risk of lethal injury, relies on the horns to maintain contact during the struggle.21
• Threat-jumps: Before a collision, a ram may rear up on its hind legs to gain momentum and force before striking its opponent.2
• Skull Adaptation: To survive the intense force of these impacts, the sheep's skull is equipped with a double layer of bone that absorbs the shock of the collision.2

Because horn size increases throughout a ram's life and generally parallels its dominance rank, these displays often serve to minimize the need for actual physical fighting, as lower-ranking individuals may defer to more dominant ones without engaging in combat.1