I remember when we got our first sheep and we crossed our fingers that they would only have ewes. Well, you know how luck goes…we got some ewes but a few rams. This year we got all rams! Thankfully we had castrated some baby goats so that they could stay with their moms for more than 2 months, so we knew how to castrate baby sheep. It’s exactly the same way.
We use the “banding” method of castration. We find this to be less stressful on the lamb. This is where you slide a special rubber band (super tight) around the scrotum. This cuts off blood supply to the testicles and the testicles eventually fall off after 1-2 months. You can find a castration bander at your local farm supply store or purchase something similar to this one.
In this video, we show you exactly how to castrate a baby sheep.
More reasons why we band rams or bucks:
- We want the ram lamb to stay with it’s mother after 2 months old. At 2 months old they can breed with their mom (and every other female in his herd.
- Lamb meat from a castrated ram tastes less “gamey”.
- The risk of infection is lower than cutting.
- It’s pretty simple and hard to mess up. For a newbie, this is important (you can always have your vet castrate if you are too timid to do it yourself).
- We aren’t using our ram lamb for breeding and want to grow him out for grass-fed meat.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out the tutorial below….
More resources on raising sheep:
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