Response to Tetanus shots for Lambs--Docking & Castrating

I guess everybody has to do what works for them best-on the big sheep ranches,they much prefer to use the knife rather than the bands.If done correctly, the knife is actually a lot more merciful,and safer- IF it's not fly season.The bands have a few drawbacks,for one thing,they don't immediately numb the area,it hurts for quite awhile before it gets numb and until then the lambs are suffering.Then there is tetanus and maggots getting into the dying flesh,but what I hate about the bands is that I have seen several "wethers" that weren't wethered well enough. In fact,we bought one, a two year old 4-h pet that needs to be eaten.A while ago I was bending over to work on a fence when he came up and snorted and pawed at me like they do during breeding season.I turned and popped him lightly on the nose,and to my surprise,he then rammed into me and my year old baby very hard! Needless to say I had something to it him with the second time he came for me and now he is penned up alone until we eat him.Then we had a goat that was supposed to be a wether,and he bred his own mother.The point is,all kinds of unplanned things can occur when the animal you thought was a wether turns out to be intact enough to be aggressive or able to breed. With the knife there is no guessing.You have pulled both testicles out and seen them both and that animal is a wether and will stay that way! I have to admit that the first time using the knife is hard on the person doing it,but after that it gets easier.If you want to know more about using the knife method,feel free to e-mail me,I detailed the procedure some time ago on this forum so it should be in the sheep archives.Having said all this,I no longer castrate my goats,because of Leviticus 22:24-25. Although it could be argued that this law applies only to animals for offerings,it also says that the Israelites were not to practice castration on any animals or to buy castrated animals from neighboring gentiles.So we just sell the males for meat before they are old enough to breed the young does.

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