Can someone explain to me why people keep talking about male sheep from Eastern Germany?

[rysiek@mstdn.social]

Can someone explain to me why people keep talking about male sheep from Eastern Germany?

Apparently everyone wants them and there's not enough to go around?

This is so weirdly specific. Why is a DDR ram is so distinctly desirable suddenly?

[mgleadow@mastodon.green]

@rysiek male eastern European sheep are well known for their Dance Dance Revolution skills, and are needed for agricultural competitions

[stoori@polyglot.city]

@rysiek heh, for a moment this connected in my mind with the thing about gay ram's wool that circulated a few days ago — i don't remember if they were from germany or not, but that's possible anyway!

only then i got the joke

[valhalla@social.gl-como.it]

@rysiek because of the shortages of consumer goods in communist Europe, in the DDR they bred sheep that were suitable for both wool and meat production¹, with as fine a wool as suitable for the non-Spanish climate of Germany.

People in other places where Merino sheep don't thrive are looking for those rams to breed their own flocks.

For obvious survive-the-apocalypse-and-rebuild-things reasons.

¹ source²: I've skimmed whitecloversheepfarm.com/prl-a… , which was the first search result and I'm definitely going back to read the whole thing
² of course I care about sources for my shitposts!

[stoori@polyglot.city]

@rysiek ha, i encountered the story again. they *were* german rams :D

https://universeodon.com/@Sfwmson/115878632107960078

[the_wub@mastodon.social]

@rysiek Oh it is so simple to explain!

Most sheep are quite skittish so you can only pat them once before they run away.

DDR rams on the other hand are two-stroke sheep.

[lizardbill@hachyderm.io]

@rysiek You see, a huge amount of wool that has not yet been produced was purchased with non-existent money to be used in sweaters that have also not been produced in order to place them in stores that have not yet been built, to satisfy demand that does not actually exist and to obtain profit that is mathematically impossible.

[lizardbill@hachyderm.io]

@rysiek Credit to the original: https://vowe.net/2026/01/16/why-ram-is-becoming-so-expensive/