[Jacob-list] Re: Castration - Development Inhibited?

[Tara Higgins]

Heel low!

Thank you to all who posted such excellent info on keeping Jacob rams.
I *think* I am heading for getting two more ram lambs and raising them
up together...sounds like a rather worthy method to try out!

I like Neal's dimensions for a small pen (4'x4'..that IS small!) for two
rams to become aquainted in...48 hours you say...I'm sure they are plumb
ready to shake hooves, buy each other a beer and get eating some serious
grub over thinking about fighting after sharing intimate sweaty quarters
with each other for two days & nights...hee hee!  Now there's a concept
in beating rammy tendencies...I like this!  :-)

Gary <fayg at mebtel.net> wrote:

> I am not sure about Rams but all of the p-psychologist literature I
read in
> college stated removing Testes from male mice did not mitigate
aggressive
> behavior. Is seems that once the aggressive patterns are wired into
the
> brain the removal was not suffient to reduce aggressive behavior...
>
> Gary

OK, this sounds reasonable and I heard privately from another lister
that post aggressive behaviour castration does not work.  If the ram
becomes aggressive, it is too late to alter them to "fix" their
behaviours.  Mean boys get shipped  :-(

Sooooo, since the adult Jacob ram has such impressive horns, here's
another line of questions...

Kelley Rambo <Kelley_Rambo at antiochne.edu> wrote:

> My youngest ram is about 2 now.

<snip>

> I penned him with his brother who was wethered and another wether
who's a little
> cocky and that seemed to go well.

Perfect example for my next questions!  If you wether a ram lamb, how
does this stunt his growth (horns, physical size, growth rate)?  Jacob
sheep have horns that are obviously influenced by male hormones (I
presume guessing here, testosterone maybe??) which then dictates large
horn growth in the male.

Kelley!  You have there a two year old ram and his wethered
brother...not expecting this to be a mini scientific study or anything,
but when did you wether the brother and how has this brother's horn
growth/physical stature compared to his ram brother?  I guess what I am
getting at, how much horn stunting is done post castration?  How has the
rate of development been in comparison...ram to wether?

When does one safely wethered a Jacob ram to ensure horn growth is
pretty much determined?  If you wait till they are two years,  you risk
the "rammy" behaviours!

Here's another one too...fleece quality.  If you compare the ram and
wether's fleece to each other (I presume we accept that the best fleece
is the Jacob's first fleece and it degrades from there), would you feel
that the lack of being intact has had any affect on their fleeces
compared side by side (presuming you did not wether the brother because
his fleece was worse than his bros!).  I ask because in canines, altered
bitches do not shed like intact bitches do with each biannual heat
cycle.  Therefore some sly dog showers have been accused of secretly
altering their females so to avoid the cycling show coat losses.  Simpy
put, altered dogs have thicker more predictable coats, de-sexed males
and females seem to put on a thick coat and keep it.   They still
seasonally shed out, but nothing like intact dogs.  Is wool
growth/quality affected at all by male hormones?  I know that a capon
chicken's growth rate exceeds all others.

These questions are mainly out of curiousity since I have heard that
altered Jacob ram lambs never develop the impressive horn sets and
wondered if fleeces were affected in any way too.

Mary Ellen Hansson <mhansson1 at triad.rr.com> wrote:
Subject: [Jacob-list] Aggressiveness and wethers....

> I can tell you that putting babysitter wethers with rams will turn
them
> into much more aggressive animals than if the same wethers (wethered
> early in life before behaviors begin) were left with the ewe flock and

> never exposed to the rams.

<snip>

> After a few wether babysitters around here and other farms were
observed, I
> concluded it was much easier keeping at least 2 rams for each other
than feeding
> a useless wether.

What you are saying then is that the wethers will take on the intact
rams' behaviours, that seems natural.  Some of the ram behaviours
therefore must be environmentally learned...those who have nice rams
(Kelley cites her older ram mentoring Skyelar into having a better
temperament and others I have spoken to have had successive well
mannered rams buddied up with each other and all behaving!) seem to have
a flow of "nice" rams all down the line.

I know that geneticist Malcolm B. Willis (canine) cites a small amount
of temperament is inherited with the larger portion being attributed to
"environment."  It just seems expectable that wethers would learn to act
like intact rams if partnered with them over the ewes.  Some of the
wethers reluctance to get down and dirty must also brush off on the rams
they are partnered with, but certainly the wethers would be learning to
be more aggressive.  Jacob sheep are more "frisky" and I have observed
the ewes head butting and sabering their horns together...but certainly
not the all out head crashing expected from the rams.

"Raising Sheep the Modern Way" by Paula Simmons (page 82) on the subject
of raising your own ram says:

"The way ram lambs are raised can have some effect on their future
sexual performance.  Studies have shown that rams raised from weaning in
an all-male group will show lower levels of sexual performance in later
life. Some will actually show no sexual interest in receptive females."

Hmmm, this may be a pitfall to raising three ram lambs together but I
have yet to hear complaints from Jacob owners who do keep bachelor
groups of Jacob rams outside of breeding season.  I *think* if one used
a marking system (harness or brisket marking paint) you could make sure
the ram was actively going through the motions and not sterile or as
this book says, showing no sexual interest.

Doggone hate to think of a world where males preferred their own
company, females would be totally bored with nobody to manipulate
<blush!>,

Tara
--
      ____(\                Tara Lee Higgins                  /)____
     (_____~>        Rat Ranch - An ACD is for LIFE          <~_____)
    ( ``  ``          ranchrat at telusplanet.net                ``  `` )
     \                      Alberta Canada                          /
      )  http://www.telusplanet.net/public/ranchrat/index.html     (