It was time to do what you likely don\u2019t want to read about. \u00a0But, castrating our male lambs is a part of life on a franch. \u00a0Otherwise, there would be brothers making babies with sisters in our pastures. \u00a0It\u2019s not something we do every day. \u00a0So, every time it\u2019s that time of year, we do a quick Google and YouTube search to refresh our memories. \u00a0It\u2019s something you don\u2019t want to get wrong because\u2026well\u2026because that would just be wrong. \u00a0My husband was at the kitchen table with his laptop\u00a0searching online about using rubber castration bands with his castration assistants (our children) watching\u00a0over his shoulder. \u00a0They came across a way that we didn\u2019t know, and now can\u2019t un-know (and now neither can you!). \u00a0Did you know that\u00a0shepherds would once use their teeth to castrate their lambs? \u00a0 It’s even still talked about today as a possible method, though not recommended. \u00a0I\u2019m serious.\u00a0 Aren’t you thankful to be\u00a0born in this\u00a0day and age? \u00a0Thank goodness times have changed. \u00a0I get that testicles are slippery and hard to hold on to, but your teeth?! \u00a0Here’s how it went: \u00a0A shepherd\u2019s knife would be used to cut the bottom of the lamb scrotum and the testicles would be pulled out with the teeth, sliced off with the knife, and the bloody testicles spat on the ground. \u00a0I don’t know anything about you, but I do know that right now you’re totally grossed out and likely clenching your teeth or crossing your legs! \u00a0I liked an\u00a0anonymous \u201cpoem\u201d in the comments of one site describing this old way, \u201cPerhaps they were hungry or born of poor fate. \u00a0I\u2019m glad for my fortune, no sheep to castrate.\u201d \u00a0One good thing of now\u00a0knowing the old-fashioned way is that it makes our way today less unpleasant to think about, and even my\u00a0kids seemed less disturbed about what they were about to do as they went off to the barn with the rubber rings and elastrator tool in hand. \u00a0“How\u2019d it go?\u201d I queried my husband and children when they later came in from the barn. \u00a0It seemed to take longer than I had expected. \u00a0My son\u00a0explained why, \u201cIt was really tricky to get those testicles to stay in the band. \u00a0They just kept slipping back up.\u201d \u00a0(Well, that’s certainly a comment you don’t want to take out of context!). \u00a0It made me chuckle and I replied, \u201cWell, I guess there is\u00a0some sense in the old-fashioned way after all, isn’t there?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was time to do what you likely don\u2019t want to read about. \u00a0But, castrating our male lambs is a part of life on a franch. \u00a0Otherwise, there would be brothers making babies with sisters in our pastures. \u00a0It\u2019s not something we do every day. \u00a0So, every time it\u2019s that time of year, we do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}