[SallyintNorth]

Hoping folks with good techniques for safely castrating lambs will share their tips here.

Just had to cut 6 rings off (when banding 4 lambs) - and only one of those was applied by the novice I'm training.  5 times my fit little Shetland cross lambs managed to jiggle a testicle back through the ring as I went to remove the elastrators. 

One ewe is 1/4 Romney 1/4 Wensleydale 1/16 BFL, the other 1/4 BFL.  (Both to a Shetland tup.)  The former ewe lambed 5 days ago, the latter 4 days, so these are all decent-sized lambs, and I checked and was happy that the testes were big enough to band.  Yes at the smaller end of what you'd attempt, but not silly little things that can practically slip through the unstretched ring (like a 2-day old pure Shetland would be.)

I have castrated literally thousands of lambs over the years, and I think the number of one-ball or no-ball rings I've had to cut off in all that time nearly doubled this morning!  (And vindicated my insistence that you never go near this job without an exquisitely sharp fine-pointed knife, or fine scissors, to remove an incorrectly applied band.) 

So, thousands of successful castrations under my belt notwithstandsing, I'm not too proud to ask for help when I have been struggling. 

What techniques do you all employ to get the ruddy elastrators off without losing a testicle back through the ring?  (And yes we checked in every case that we had two testicles safely and completely snared before we started to remove the device.) 

[shep53]

Not sure sally what i can add that you don't already know / do , i do it on auto pilot so I had to think about how i do it  , i go for the points facing the stomach method  but you could try the points facing away method , in both cases you just hold the ring with thumb and finger and slide off the pliers while at the same time pulling the pliers without any opening pressure  until the ring is off the end of the pliers then slowly open the pliers to get over the testes

[Womble]

We had real problems with our Manxs (they're far harder than Zwartbles, and also wrigglier). What we used to do was tie some embroidery thread around the scrotum, just to keep the testes in place while we released the band, aiming to get the band further on than the thread.

Then make sure the two wee nipply bits are outside the ring, and both testes can be felt inside the scrotum# before cutting the thread.

# adding this to the long list of sentences I thought I'd never need to type, but here we are.

[Fleecewife]

It's the demo gremlin

[SallyintNorth]

Not sure sally what i can add that you don't already know / do , i do it on auto pilot so I had to think about how i do it  , i go for the points facing the stomach method  but you could try the points facing away method , in both cases you just hold the ring with thumb and finger and slide off the pliers while at the same time pulling the pliers without any opening pressure  until the ring is off the end of the pliers then slowly open the pliers to get over the testes

Thanks shep.  Yep, that is exactly what I do, have always done, and usually works fine! 

Been pondering, and wondering whether maybe there are tips on how to hold wriggly lambs more still, because it was the wriggling caused the problem more than the banding technique...   We eventually got success with the final lamb by a second person spending some time soothing him, then continuing to soothe him over my shoulder while I had another go.  Significantly reduced the squiggling, and finally successful, thank goodness.

Womble's idea of using a thread first is interesting.  Anyone else done this, anyone see any possible issues with it? 

[SallyintNorth]

My preferred positioning is to half-sit the lamb on my thigh, my foot on the bottom rung of a hurdle, which puts my mid thigh at exactly the right height for our lambs.  I keep the lamb's legs well clear of the top rung of the hurdle (so he doesn't think there is anything he can kick out against.)

There are techniques I've seen written up where you hold all 4 lambs legs, each side's legs paired and gripped at the knee/hock, but my experience (of all lambs but especially of Shetland x lambs) is they will struggle from the outset if they feel totally constrained.  So my positioning replicates the shearing or foot trimming position, where a sheep firmly supported (but not forcibly held), resting on one butt cheek, is generally a calm and still sheep.  But since it is not currently delivering a reliably enough calm and still lamb, maybe I need to adopt a different position... 

[Womble]

I think you either need a calm / still lamb OR a completely restrained one.

We had to inject a couple of eyelids this year, and it took two people to completely immobilise the lamb, and another to do the injection. Any movement by the lamb could have ended very badly indeed.

I possibly should have nipped to the other end and done the balls at the same time!

[SallyintNorth]

Yeah, I do always have a calm lamb at the point the ring is applied, but in this case they all started to thresh about once I started to remove the pliers.  I guess you are then putting pressure on the bit that's just been assaulted, so it's understandable.  And although after the first failure I told my apprentices I would do it as though they weren't there, not taking it slower and describing things as I went, I guess I probably still was a bit in "teach" mode and maybe didn't in fact have the same energy or swiftness I would normally have.

Perhaps we should try some immobilisation techniques and find one that works for us.  We are all very aware that we can't rely on only me forever, so the younger folks do need to get competent somehow. And we can't give them the numbers (nor the dead lambs to practise on) that I had, so we will have to come up with something else... 

[Womble]

Okay, stick a couple of grapes in a condom, then tie a knot on it.

One person takes turns jiggling the condom, whilst the other tries to band the grapes. If they can't get the deed done within 10 seconds, without crushing any grapes, they have to take a shot  .

[shep53]

NO money worries then you could buy a lamb cradle , job sorted

[Penninehillbilly]

I read about tying a bit of string round first, but (easier if two of you) I just wrap the string round once, when everything is in place and ring is on, the string can then just be unwound from behind the ring  rather than unknottting.

[Fleecewife]

We rarely band any lambs now but when we did our technique was to be as quick as possible.  I would lift the lamb and hold him under his armpits, his body hanging down my front, my tummy sticking out,  G would do the biz so quickly that the lamb didn't have time to wriggle or haul his little pebbles back inside before the job was done and he was standing back on the ground thinking 'wha....?'  It was vital to have the bander prongs facing one way or the other     I think it's prongs pointing outwards but I'll check when the man himself is available.
By what I said earlier, 'Demo gremlin', I meant that because you are showing someone else how to do the job, it slows everything down. You have to show that you have both testicles above the ring, then again that you have them in the ring, you have to show how to hold the applicator, etc etc and in the time you take to do this, the lamb has plenty of time to work out the danger to his crown jewels so he retracts them.  I'm sure all male readers will sympathise with this.  So don't lose confidence, Sally, just recognise it as the effect of Demo Gremlin.