Unhappy lambs

My lambs are not happy today. I castrated our little ram, Ben and docked his tail. I docked the tails on the other babies except the new one. I will dock her tail in a week or so.  Needless to say they are all not very happy... I dock and castrate with a special rubber band that is made for castrating. After a few weeks the lamb's tails will fall off.

There is discussion whether it is necessary to dock tails. I have decided that for our sheep, taking off the tail is a plus. Last year we did not remove the tails and this year, during shearing, the clump of wool on the tails of last year's lambs was just a clump of poo! Yuk! Poo stuck to the end of the tails and made a big clump. That area of wool isn't saved anyway, so there is no reason to save the tail.

We do keep some of the tail to cover the anus and vulvae so that no infection can set in, otherwise the length of the tail comes off.

Ben will be our meat next spring. To keep him from mating with the girls this year, we castrated him and will use him for the freezer next year. For lamb, he should be slaughtered in the fall, but for mutton he will be slaughtered in the spring at about a year old. He will be full size and ready for the freezer. We may put a couple of the other lambs in the freezer as well, but the boy needed to be castrated so he wouldn't mate. We will also have fresh lamb for Passover. This year we will buy lamb for Pesach. We do not sacrifice the lamb/sheep. It is not an acceptable sacrifice to YHVH. We do butcher them for the freezer and use them for Pesach. Good meat!

Hag Sameach!
Happy Pesach!