[ZaktheLad]

I no longer castrate my ram lambs.  I seperate them off at 4 months old and they go in with the ram until I sell them on in Sept and October.  All of my Hampshire Down x ram lambs went to breeding homes last year 

[Ladygrey]

I am unsure what to do with mine this year, I have plenty of paddocks/space to separate ram lambs at or before weaning time so thats not a problem for me.

I will be having every crossbreed under the sun this year (due to a ram mix up) and I am tempted to just castrate the ones coming out like shetlands and leave the others entire.....

or just leave them all entire and just stick any small ones out to overwinter on the ryegrass leys...

I am really impressed with the rapid growth of my Charmoise ram lambs so far, either its a breed thing or that they are rams or a bit of both... either way they are growing better then my charollais cross lambs that I castrated last year...

[chonty]

Well Im definitely leaving them whole this year but i wont have many. With regards shetlands, and ive got absolutely no experience with the smaller more primitive breeds, what age do they weigh well for slaughter? If it takes longer perhaps leaving them intact might cause you problems? But as you say you have got plenty of space and as long as you have a larger group any aggressiveness might be shared amongst the group? Dont know.

[Ladygrey]

I bought some shetland shearling ewes off a farm who had the ram lambs away each year by 12 months, weighing 40ish kilo

But I knew a farm who had a smaller less "commercial" type who had them away at 14-18 months.

I have two types of shetland ewes, short and wide or tall and lanky, I havnt had pure shetland lambs before, only crossed them, these crosses can be finished at 6 months on grass alone, 40ish kilo

Im guessing if I have any pure shetland rams, they may take 12-14 months to finish pure as I have lots of overwintering ryegrass from a dairy farm.

However the shetland ram covered all my big ewes and the commercial ram covered my first timers (well I think so anyway) but would have to wait and see who pops out what!

Commercial ram is a Hampshire down cross Charollais and really shouldnt have gone onto first time shetlands who are rather short (but wide)

I find the rams dont get aggressive as they dont have any competition? as I dont feed them at all and just look at them really, dont handle them much either
I have a shetland ram whom I havnt touched since october 13 and I caught him last week and was walking him around on a halter (for the first time ever) he is a big boy and has a lovely wide back
So I dont know about aggressiveness!!

[FiB]

No docking or castration here.. Mostly because I can't really see a need as we just about have enough fields to separate. A couple of their tails did get mucky, which made it harder to dag.... But that's my problem not theirs......   I hate seeing sheep with impaired tails!Just sending the last of last years off this week.... Taste fine     I do regret  not doing my pet ram lamb last year, as I would have kept him.... But he is off this week.

[Hellybee]

Yes I agree Sally there's that too, keeping bits covered lol x


I don't know about the predisposition of strike though, I feel that's all about keeping bums dagged , mag buckets in, good worming practice and the use of crovect x

[FiB]

I had 2 lambs struck last year[size=78%], both clean and both high up on tail so docking wouldn't have helped....  Will crovect back ends earlier this year[/size]

[Hellybee]

Ram lambs? They can tend to dampen each others back ends when they practice they're tupping moves ...  I think this maybe a reason to turn lambs  into wethers to be honest x

[FiB]

Ram lambs? They can tend to dampen each others back ends when they practice they're tupping moves ...  I think this maybe a reason to turn lambs  into wethers to be honest x

.    Very delicately put!!  That could be true (they were almost all ram lambs)