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We decided to have two of our males castrated this week as we do not intend to breed from them any more and they were becoming aggressive towards each other, mainly because we have brought them up to the home paddocks which means they are closer to the females.
Pedro and Spirit have been fine in the past, but I think that my experiment with field matings in 2012 upset them. That is when a male is left with a female harem for a period of time and is able to mate at will, instead of supervised matings in a pen, one to one, and then being returned almost straight away to the rest of the males. It is normal practice with sheep, but did not seem to suit our boys.
Pedro now seems possessive of all the females on the farm and it has changed his personality, although he is still perfectly well behaved with humans and is very easy to handle.
When the vet carried out the procedure all seemed to go smoothly and she said that the only slight worry would be if a bleed occurred, although she stressed that it was unlikely.
I checked on them both at lunchtime and then again late afternoon, when I saw that Spirit was indeed bleeding and when I lifted his tail I observed a heavy flow of blood. I phoned the vet and in the meantime Mike and I shut him into his shelter and I applied pressure to the wound for hours (it seemed). Another vet arrived and did a very good sewing job and following four hourly checks during the evening and over night it looks as though Spirit will be OK.
They are both looking quite perky now but it will take about six weeks for their testosterone to leave their bodies permanently. We are just hoping that it will make a difference to their behaviour. There is no guarantee.
Spirit and Dolly.
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