# Butchering Hair sheep rams vs wethers



## promiseacres

With my Painted Desert cross hair sheep I've heard that they've a milder taste so it's unnecessary to castrate the lambs for butchering....but then they say butcher at 5 mos...which doesn't make for a very heavy lamb. 
 Those of you raising hair sheep do you automatically castrate any destined for the butcher? With the possiblity of a nice set of 4 horns I definately wouldn't want to do it before I knew how his horns are going to come in so he'd be at least a month old.... before we'd castrate. I hadn't planned on castrating, but hadn't heard about the "rule" of 5 months either. 

We love deer so don't mind a gamey taste. I know it comes down to what we like....just curious about what everyone else does. I know my sheep are slower growing than other breeds.


----------



## Shelly May

No don't butcher until they are around 11 months old, Lamb meat is any sheep that is butchered before it is a year old, any older than a year is now called mutton, so if you want to eat lamb then butcher before they hit a year. The only problem you have with not casturating is at 5 months of age some sheep breeds are able to breed, So you would not want a ram lamb breeding his momma or sisters, So you will need to casturate if your going to keep them in the same pen until they reach 11 months of age. If you have seperate pens don't casturate if you don't want to. But we don't casturate until they are between 4-8 weeks of age, you need to make sure both nuts have dropped before you can casturate and sometimes it takes this long, Sorry about the english terms there. Hope this helps


----------



## goodolboy

An intack lamb will grow faster than one that has been castrated. We put 10-12 lambs in the freezer every year and have never had a problem with the taste. When I deer hunt I've never had a problem with a yearling buck.


----------



## Roving Jacobs

Don't know about butchering but it's pretty easy to tell if a ram will have 2 or 4+ horns and their basic horn set right from the start based on their horn buds.

2 horned rams have 2 big swirls right on the top of their heads. You want those swirls to be fairly far apart so you're sure the horns will sweep out and not interfere with their face. 




At 2 hours old






At 2 years old.

Ram lambs with multiple horns don't have the big swirls but might have several smaller swirls. These can be hard to find but become clearer by 2 weeks at most. Again you want them to be set far apart. It's harder to tell whether they will tilt forward or back at this age and mine seem to knock them off on a regular basis so who knows how they'll grow back the second and third time. I've had horns continue to change substantially well into 2 and 3 years old. The horn buds will tell you how they're going to end up spaced though and that's really key for a good set of horns.




No big swirls as a newborn.




At two weeks he had 4 tiny horns coming in.




At 2 years he has a nice set of horns.

Also I don't know about Painted Desert but my Jacobs which seem to be a similar size are only about 40-50 lbs at 5 months old on nothing but pasture and I can't imagine butchering them at that size.


----------



## Southern by choice

I have nothing to offer here but I was FREAKING OUT seeing the pics !! 

I wish I had a calender of these pics Roving Jacobs.  Now I wish I was going to breed our ewe. :/

Jacob lambies are too stinking cute.. and yes all lambs are but seriously.. the Jacobs.  

I'm gonna go back and look at them again!


----------



## promiseacres

Great...the advice were from the gal I got them from and my mom....(the first only had these 4 sheep for about a year and the latter raised sheep a long time ago but we never really ate them) but they were saying the same thing.... thanks. Seperate pens isn't a problem. And he can keep his daddy company til I want to breed the girls next fall. 

Thank for those beautiful photos roving jacobs! From your photo tutorial I think he will have 4...he is very skittish so have only had my hands on him 1 x....maybe I will try to get a closer look via my camera  he just turned 2 weks and I can tell that he will get horns but not much else.


----------



## Shelly May

Southern is turning sheepish ,


----------



## Roving Jacobs

promiseacres said:
			
		

> Great...the advice were from the gal I got them from and my mom....(the first only had these 4 sheep for about a year and the latter raised sheep a long time ago but we never really ate them) but they were saying the same thing.... thanks. Seperate pens isn't a problem. And he can keep his daddy company til I want to breed the girls next fall.
> 
> Thank for those beautiful photos roving jacobs! From your photo tutorial I think he will have 4...he is very skittish so have only had my hands on him 1 x....maybe I will try to get a closer look via my camera  he just turned 2 weks and I can tell that he will get horns but not much else.


I've found that if I can't tell how many horns they have as lambs they will have at least 4. The 2 horned ones have really large obvious horn buds. At least with the baby rams, ewe lambs can be a bit trickier and I just have to wait and see with them.

Feel free to post little lamb pictures though! You know, so I can help you check for horns not just because I love seeing the lambies


----------



## Bridgemoof

I just LOVE Roving Jacobs lambies  I can't wait to have my Jacob babies in March and May. Southern, when I'm done with URIAH, I'll send him your way to breed your ewe  Just make sure you carry a big stick around 

Sometimes some of those horns are scurs, can you tell if it's going to be a horn or a scur when they're newborns?


----------



## Roving Jacobs

Bridgemoof said:
			
		

> I just LOVE Roving Jacobs lambies  I can't wait to have my Jacob babies in March and May. Southern, when I'm done with URIAH, I'll send him your way to breed your ewe  Just make sure you carry a big stick around
> 
> Sometimes some of those horns are scurs, can you tell if it's going to be a horn or a scur when they're newborns?


I've never had a Jacob produce scurs so I'm not sure. I would imagine that they would not have the large horn bud since scurs don't have the extensive blood supply that horns do. 

Don't let that baby man boss you around Bridge! He can't be more than 90 lbs and has got convenient handles. If he starts being a brat just grab one and flip, easy as that. Step on them until they stop trying to get up then walk away. I've never had to do it more than twice and I've found it works better than smacking them around with a stick. They just think that's playing most of the time.


----------



## promiseacres

IDK if you can tell from these but def. 2 horns in front, maybe 2 swirls behind.... what do you think Roving Jacobs?
Thanks!


----------



## Roving Jacobs

Definitely 2 and he looks "lumpy" enough that I could see him having more. The second swirls behind are kind of close to the first horn buds so he may genetically have 4 but end up with them fused together so it looks like just 2. It will be clearer in a week or two.

I love his wavy coat! He's such a little doll no matter how many horns


----------

