The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: shrekfeet on August 12, 2010, 12:28:45 pm
-
IU read in another thread someone saying entire rams will taint the meat after 5 months old. Can anyone comment on this?
-
We have had some really good lambs this year and did not want to knock them back with castration, on the other hand we have one weedy lamb that castration would probably finish off.Ours were born 1st week in May and was told end of Sept lateset for slaughter but to keep checking on the groin area, as soon as that reddens up we must kill to stop the meat tainting.An experiment this year, we will see what happens.
-
Hi Shrekfeet, it was me that said that, but I have since been corrected by the more knowledgable members of this forum. I have indeed found that the meat (or more particularly the fat) of ram lambs can taste pretty nasty but I have since been told that if you wait until the mating season has finished they taste better again. I am going to try this with a shetland ram I have and get him slaughtered in march and see how he tastes.
-
Have a look at a Scottish Agricultural College document on the subject of leaving ram lambs intact:
http://www.sac.ac.uk/mainrep/pdfs/entiremalelambtechnicalnote430
I can't claim to be more knowledgable than others, but I haven't found a problem yet with hoggets out of season. Mind you, I could believe that an ancient old ram of many years may well have a "strong flavour" most of the time.
John
-
Also some people actually like the flavour given to meat by a tup in breeding mode. It seems to be more noticeable to women than to men. How much tuppiness is present will also vary with breed - even when still on their feet Shetland tups (and their fleeces) smell very musky to me, and I am aware of it in their meat as breeding season hoggs, but with Hebrideans and Soays I have only noticed a taint in older tups several years old. We have a bunch of Heb shearling tups and one Soay going off next week :yum:
-
Thanks all - I have Poll Dorsets so they can breed all year round. How will this affect 'in season' taint?
Maybe Morri may see this post and reply as I know she keeps Dorsets too
-
we have suffolks which also have a long breeding season and have found many people prefferred to have the entire lambs as they were packed with flavour, then again some people haven't come back for more so they may prefer the lighter flavours...
-
we had a longwool tup that we killed at 10 months the flavour and texture of the meat was superb. However they do take longer to mature as they are a big heavy breed and benefit from a longer growing period :yum: