Wow, a lot to pick up on here.
We don't always castrate and we don't always dock - sometimes we just can't get around them all soon enough as we lamb the majority outdoors.
Long-tailed lambs get dirtier and therefore are more likely to get strucken, yes.
Lambs will waggle their tails whether they are 2 inches or 2 feet long. I really don't think they notice any difference.
We might like to see the waggling tails coming out from under mummy's udder, but that's a different issue!
Farm Assurance is okay with docking but insists on enough being left to cover the anus, and the vulva in girls. Some farmers may well feel that to leave so much negates the benefits of docking in the first place, so don't now bother. We do have some older girls whose modesty is not covered, and boy did I feel for those poor lasses in the -21C temperatures in the two previous winters
Female hill sheep (this far north anyways) are left full-tailed in order to provide warmth for the udder in the winter. However, modern practices are to 'crutch' for tupping - the real hill farm(er)s just clip the wool off the 10 inches from tail root to just past the vulva, leaving a silly-looking pom-pom on the end - but it keeps the udder warm.
The sales routes we use (which includes deadweight to supermarkets and to our local butcher as well as through the auction ring) have no problem with entire tup lambs. I presume that means there is no difference in the meat, but that could be a false assumption.
BH used to assert that entire boys grew faster and better. However we have been castrating more the last few years and have found:
- no evidence that they grow any faster in either case
- no evidence that wethers lay down more fat than tups - possibly except if there is ad lib cake
- tup lambs do stop growing and lose condition when the seasons turn towards tupping time
- wethers are less likely to develop horns or scurrs in breeds where not all sheep have horns
- we end up in August and September drawing anything vaguely ready that has testicles because they are becoming a management problem and will start to go back if we keep them on much longer
- this year and last the fat prices didn't drop very dramatically later in the season, and remained good through the winter, so there is not so much financial advantage in sending lambs away early even if still rather light
- because we focus our draw on testicles, we end up with some wethers and fat ewe lambs growing too large and fat, and thereby losing us money - they eat more cake and fetch less per kilo, plus deadweight for the supermarket is capped at 21 or 21.5kg
- no evidence of any check in growth using rings at 24-48 hours - whereas BH recalls a good week's check when they used to use burdizzos at two weeks to a month old
So we are going to try to ring castrate more of our male lambs this year, and certainly any born after 'first cycle' and any twin or triplet lambs. I know what you mean about interfering with bonding, SteveHants; when lambing outside it can be a challenge to catch and ring the lambs and not lose contact with the ewe, especially with twins and with inexperienced ewes.
Lostlambs, you have some serious weather there. Are you lambing now??? We are advised not to put ear tags in when it's very cold as there would be a risk of frostbite at the wound site - I don't know if the same could apply to ringing tails or balls when the conditions are very very cold.