Farmers who dont castrate with rings, what are your thoughts?

[andybk]

Does black wool attract files?
Would short black tails be worse for strike than long black tails ?

any that have been docked (commercial recips ) dont get the issues so quick , so in their case docking does give better protection , I generally crutch ewes with lambs at foot when they come off keep in march , for shearing in early may . if not shorn or treated would have maggots mid end may for sure . and they seem to carry a bad infection before its even spotted , long openish coats seem perfect for laying fly .

 

[wurzelfan]

any that have been docked (commercial recips ) dont get the issues so quick , so in their case docking does give better protection , I generally crutch ewes with lambs at foot when they come off keep in march , for shearing in early may . if not shorn or treated would have maggots mid end may for sure . and they seem to carry a bad infection before its even spotted , long openish coats seem perfect for laying fly .

Interestingly, despite it being a common agreed idea that docking reduces flystrike, theres actually very limited data to support this- which is probably why there's a fair bit of debate on the topic. However, flystrike has been shown to correlate with 'dirtiness' of the rear. Interesting that you've seen the opposite!

 

[JSmith]

Had five with strike this week, all ewes all docked an not an ounce of muck on any of them! From the belly to the shoulder and on the back end, mixture of fleece type, just weather conditions and dopey flies end of season!!

 

[NZDan]

Australia don’t have muddy fields etc where lambs are hiding under hedges due to torrential rain, I find my fields with molehills will produce the most amount of joint ill.

You do realise how big Australia is and how variable the climate is? It ain't all desert. Often those so called dry areas get quite a bit of rain, it just all falls at once, normally at lambing so they can grow lambs while they're growing grass.

 

[NZDan]

Interestingly, despite it being a common agreed idea that docking reduces flystrike, theres actually very limited data to support this- which is probably why there's a fair bit of debate on the topic. However, flystrike has been shown to correlate with 'dirtiness' of the rear. Interesting that you've seen the opposite!

I don't dock my lambs, 4 years ago we docked 10 or 12 lambs that were obvious culls. We had 6 lambs with Fly Strike that year, all were docked. To be fair there were other factors involved.

 

[NZDan]

Thank you for your response. Primarily, the issue with rings is that they do not apply enough pressure in one go to crush the nerve immediately, unlike the burdizzo. This is where the mm by mm comes in- the nerve is crushed quite slowly until the ring tightens enough for it to 'die' (i.e. after about 2 hours or so)- it has to go through all the tissue first as the nerve lies in the centre. I apologise for the laymans terms, I just wanted to avoid medical jargon for simplicity as I believe if you cant explain yourself in simple terms you don't understand the concept well enough. The issue here is the time it takes for the 'tubes and nerves' to be crushed. It is not immediate. Therefore, where you say less pressure is being exerted on a smaller scrotum, that does not necessarily mean there is less pain, and possibly the contrary as it may take even longer for the nerve to be crushed. However, there will be less cells to die by necrosis, which means there will be fewer pain signals in that regard. With regard to your comment about braille, it is important to know that touch receptors and pain receptors are not the same, meaning that our hands may be able to be sensitive to touch but not so much to pain compared to the testicles. I appreciate your comment on the animals reaction, it is difficult to determine what exactly a 'pain' behaviour is, and I'm no behaviouralist. I however do have faith in the shepherds and professors who have observed and studied this extensively. I agree that the variability in how animals respond is a reason for this topic to be so controversial among farmers and vets.

Have cut my fingers numerous times and my scrotum once, I can assure you that the pain receptors in fingers send much stronger signals than the the pain receptors in your scrotum