Need Help with Tail Cropping and castration please.

[SarahSand1]

Hello Sarah from Tasmania! My hubby was in Hobart for a month or so on business, loved it there!
Sheep section would be better! and....

This is getting really confusing, What section am I in?

Is not Birthing, Weaning and Raising Young Sheep a Sheep Section?

Glad your hubby enjoyed Hobart, when I first arrived here in 2007 I thought I stepped into a time warp back to the 70's

By mainland standards, Sydney, this place to me was primitive, it was quite a cultrure shock to the System, it took me three years to adjust.

I now live 52 km as the crow flies south of Hobart, on a 7.5 acre property in Franklin Altitude about 220 meters and being past the 40th paralell, we get the blasts of the roaring 40's with recent gusts of 120 kph.

Winter here is tragic with the wind and rains and the Chicken Coup is a mud bath, no matter how high I raised the main coup on stilts, We have frequent visits from quolls and Tasmanian Devils and I do not care if it is a protected species or not, my livestock is more protected to me, if I see one of these critters trotting up the road at night, I do not see them and they just get squashed under the ute tyres and a 4wd Toyota makes a good squasher.

My lovley ewes, the dorsets are the most gentle creatures I have ever had, and we did have Sannan goats before as well as a couple of Boer wethers, all sent to the meat works and freezer as to hard to control and the cost of goat proof fencing was to great and they totally ignored electric fencing. Oh well the goat meat was had for the last six months. Served us well over winter, Hubby is a Slavic chef, and he knows 1001 things to do with goat meat but he will not part with his recepies. Says they are a family tradition, and in his private cook book which will be passed on to his heir.

We also have about 30 New Hampshire Chickens and one Roster that is a New Hampshire Sussex Cross, indeed we are self sufficent in Eggs and sell off the surpluss currently 7 doz a week,
We plan to extend our sheepie flock, for not only paddock mowing reasons but the weathers are a welcome addition to the freezer and sell for quite a considerable profit at Auction or on the net.

Anyhow good people this is enough of an introduction from me, hubby sends his love and thanks.

Sarah

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I don't band tails until at least a week old, and I prefer to wait until around 2 weeks. I castrate at varying times, depending on the animal. Lately I haven't been castrating at all, since the lambs will be for the freezer I just keep them intact and it doesn't affect the meat. If I was sure I wanted to castrate a ram, I'd probably do it around 8 weeks.

 

[Southern by choice]

hi SarahSand! I might be wrong but i think your post originally showed up in the goats section, it says moved and is now in sheep!I rarely look at sheep stuff I don't have any sheep and know nothing. I'm glad it was in goats or I would have never seen your post! Would love to see you start a journal and share with us farm life in Tasmania! You got me at the Tasmanian Devils thing, , I know it's not really funny but for us here(in the States) it is just something you see on National Geographic or something, completely out of our understanding.

Somehow you must "sweetly" convince Hubby to share a few easy (for us non-chefs) recipes for goat. Not asking for family secrets just simple (and I mean simple) recipes, something that would feed 12-13 people... Please

Check out the journals section!

 

[SarahSand1]

hi SarahSand! I might be wrong but i think your post originally showed up in the goats section, it says moved and is now in sheep!I rarely look at sheep stuff I don't have any sheep and know nothing. I'm glad it was in goats or I would have never seen your post! Would love to see you start a journal and share with us farm life in Tasmania! You got me at the Tasmanian Devils thing, , I know it's not really funny but for us here(in the States) it is just something you see on National Geographic or something, completely out of our understanding.

Somehow you must "sweetly" convince Hubby to share a few easy (for us non-chefs) recipes for goat. Not asking for family secrets just simple (and I mean simple) recipes, something that would feed 12-13 people... Please

Check out the journals section!

Hi Southern By Choice,
I am glad that the error in posting is sorted at last.
I have put up a members page on this forum where you can see a picture of our property with another picture of our babies. Also there is a link to our primary site and if you wish you can download from there our broshure in PDF format that will show quite a few pics of our farm and what we look like.
As to your comments about the Tassie Devil, yes well, I am sure a lot of you American friends would relate to the Looney Tunes Tassie Devil Cartoons, beleive me our critters are not that funny. I suppose you guys and gals have problems with Kyotees, Racoons and the like. Australia has its Dingo's. Foxes are also on the mainland but not so much in Tasmania.

As to your request for recepies for cooking Goat, hubby says that it is no different than to cooking lamb. So whatever lamb recepies you may know, use the same and substitute goat meat.
He has agreed to share his Boerworst Sausage Recepie but I am not sure as to what section of this forum to post that too. He substitutes goat meat to the other meat shown in the recepie.

to all

Sarah

 

[Cornish Heritage]

Welcome Sarah

We are originally from England, now living in the USA. We have St. Croix sheep so do not dock tails. We rarely castrate either as there is no taint in ram meat of the St. Croix's. However when you do castrate you must make sure you have both testicles descended. If you castrate too early sometimes one of them stays hidden so just make sure you have both of them in your hand before letting go of that band! If you wait until they are too old then you will not be able to get the band around them. We tried to castrate one that was 3mths old this year & he was TOO big so he stayed as a ram - just had to make sure he was well away from the girls.

Liz

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Hi!
I usually casturate and band the tail at 3-5 days! It seems to work awesome! The lambs dont' seem too bothered by it, about an hour or so of discomfort and then all is good! ( Also they are easy to walk up to and catch at that age) Only one in about 300 lambs I have had to wait on the castration because one or both of the testies are not down, and have never had an infectin! Good luck! From reading this thread, it looks like it is up to you when it would work the best for you!

 

[Bossroo]

Before banding came into vogue... the old way was used to have another person place the 1 day to 2 week old lamb on it's hind end by holding one front leg and one hind leg in each of their hands, then another person would use a sharp knife to cut the lower 1/3 of it's scrotum off, then using one's both hands push out the 2 testicles, grab them with one's teeth and pull them out. For docking... same holding of the lamb, then using a 1/2" thick piece of board against it's rump as a spacer, apply a very hot iron cutting edge tip( similar to a chisel, but about 18" to 24" long as a handle) to cut the tails. Done in a minute or two, with no slip ups in castrations. The hot iron cauterizes the tail stump too. Many years ago I have done hundreds of lambs this way.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

the old way was used to have another person place the 1 day to 2 week old lamb on it's hind end by holding one front leg and one hind leg in each of their hands, then another person would use a sharp knife to cut the lower 1/3 of it's scrotum off, then using one's both hands push out the 2 testicles, grab them with one's teeth and pull them out.

While this may have worked years ago I certainly do not recommend this today. You are putting yourself at incredible risk of infection - think worms/parasites, & everything else that is coming out close to where the scrotum is. It is not worth it.

... it grosses me out to even think of doing it that way.

Cowboys used to do this with calves too & recently someone, in the last year, died from the infection they got by biting the testes of calves.

Liz

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I've done them the way Bossroo explained, EXCEPT I did not bite them out. LOL. I just used my hands.

 

[BrownSheep]

My dad almost would prefer it if we cut them that way( hands not teeth). I told him he could do it himself if that's how he wanted it done.