Hair sheep question

[Goose37]

Know a lot of you all raise sheep with your cows. Do you dock tails and castrate before selling? Why or why not?

 

[RanchMan90]

Know a lot of you all raise sheep with your cows. Do you dock tails and castrate before selling? Why or why not?

Doesn't matter on hair sheep. Would dock and castrate wool type. Hair sheep buyers want an unblemished lamb with tail and all parts.

 

[Son of Butch]

Know a lot of you all raise sheep with your cows.

I don't know anyone that has both sheep and cattle, I'm sure someone somewhere has both, but I don't know them.

 

[Double R Ranch]

We have both but don't run them together.
We castrate but don't doc tails.

 

[callmefence]

Know a lot of you all raise sheep with your cows. Do you dock tails and castrate before selling? Why or why not?

Doesn't matter on hair sheep. Would dock and castrate wool type. Hair sheep buyers want an unblemished lamb with tail and all parts.

This is spot on. A very large part of the hair sheep market demands a unblemished animal.

 

[farmerjan]

We have both and some places run the sheep after the cows. They are hair sheep and so no, we do not dock tails or castrate. The ethnic markets do not want an animal that has been "altered". Since we have White Texas Dall sheep and raise the rams for their horns, selling them to a couple of hunting preserves, the males never get castrated. Any males that do not have signicicant horn growth by weaning are culled and sold prior to one of the ethnic holidays, with any other lambs that are ready. Since there are several holidays over the course of the year, we can sell the lambs at the time they are at the best weights usually.
Wooled sheep are a different story. Docking and castrating is pretty standard but docking tails especially due to the manure contaminating the wool and causing problems. Hair sheep seem to lift their tails higher when doing manure it seems. We used to have the old horned dorsets, but shearing is a pain as well as no market for the wool for years. Liked the horns, so switched breeds and kept the horns. The biggest problem is having rams together, they constantly are "ramming heads" and breaking horns which lowers their value. Can't possibly have separate pens for 20 rams.....

 

[pricefarm]

Same as others have said don't do either.