The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: country soul on November 12, 2020, 07:37:48 pm
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I ve not kept lambs late in the year before but bought some stores ,a mixed bunch of sexes no obvious tups .I seen some of the wethers acting a bit rammy today ...can that happen or have they likely not been castrated properly..not had chance to catch them to check for retained testicles
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None of mine have shown any signs ever but I would check them asap. Check how and when they were castrated.
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Need to catch and check them , do it with them standing , if you turn them on their bums it can be hard to tell if they have retained testicles as they drop into the body cavity but standing you should be able to feel them . If they have retained testicles they should be sterile from being to warm but in really cold weather they CAN be fertile , the problem is that if they are with females they will fail to put on condition as they will fight and keep chasing females as they keep cycling all winter
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Thanks I m going to round them all up and check them over....hoping they were just being playful !!
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Our Hebs jump and 'ride on' the backs of their sisters (and brothers) from about 3 months, although they don't do the biz at that age. But then we don't castrate them either, we just separate the males out from the females at 4 months.
Can you separate the males from the females in your gang and keep them in separate fields? With some breeds, the tale is docked in females but left long in males so it's easy to tell the difference.
It's very likely that with animals intended for selling on, the breeder has been sloppy about castrating the males properly. I have heard slaughterhouse staff saying that from some breeders they get a lot of pregnant ewe hoggs coming through, because they have been run with poorly castrated 'wether' hoggs. The workers are obviously upset when that happens and they find they have killed a pregnant ewe.