Castration Day

WARNING!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH!!!

I know I have written about my ram Tally, and how he has been living in the barn for a few months after getting pushed off the hay by Douglas ram.  He has done remarkably well in the barn and putting weight back on and getting healthy again.  Lucy has been keeping him company for the past few weeks in the bad weather we have been having. 

The plan has been to have him castrated so that he can go out with the ewes and wethers and not have to be subjected to Douglas’s bullshite. 

Yes, Douglas can be a real turdhead.  After we lost Angus, I moved Rudah down into the ram pen as a companion for him.  Sheep do not do well alone, and they need a friend.  Rudah is of similar size and temperament, and so far, it has been working out well for both of them.  Rudah has been vocal in his complaints about being removed from all his friends though. 

Today was the day.

Castration day that is. 

We got Tally loaded up into the back seat of the truck and off to his appointment with destiny we went.  He loaded really well considering he has never had to do that particular thing before. 

He got a bit pushy in the truck and Michael kept an arm over his neck to keep him from launching into the front seat.  Other than that, he was an exceptionally good boy.

Tally is not the first ram to take a ride in my truck’s back seat. 

About 10 mins from the vet’s office, a very nice police officer felt the need to pull me over and inform me that the expiration stickers on my plates are outdated.  Ooops.  I put the damn paperwork and sticker in a safe place so I could get that done and completely forgot about doing it.  My bad.

He was quite surprised to see a full size ram in the back seat.  Thankfully he let us on our way quickly.

Got Tally unloaded and waited for the vet assistant to open the door and let us in. 

Ran Tally in the cattle chute and tied off, Michael opted to stay in with him and keep him still.  The vet asst got him shaved and laid out all the tools the vet would need for this. 

Vet came in, drew up the meds he needed and set to working.  They do this under a local anesthetic for Tally’s comfort and to make it easier and safer for both him and the vet.  Now, Tally is not the biggest ram that we have ever had, but he still runs a good solid 250lbs and he knows how to use it.

The first incision basically removes the skin at the bottom of his scrotum.  The vet then separates the smaller blood vessels from the side of the testical with his fingers.  At the same time, he is also stretching the vessels, the testical membrane sack and the skin.  The purpose of this is to activate Tally’s body to start the clotting process. 

When that is done, they clamp off the major vessels at the top of the testical, tie it off with dissolving sutures and cut the testical off of his body.   

The same thing is done for the second side.

When he is done with that, he watches for any other bleeding, which Tally did have, so a third tie off was made to close that bleeder off. 

More skin stretching is done so he will clot correctly. They leave the scrotal sack open so he will heal from the inside out.  The vet gave him a dose of sheep Tylenol, and started to give me the lecture about infection, looked at me, and said, yeah, you don’t need that one.  Tally only had one short bout of foot stomping, otherwise he stood there like a champ.

Tally did bleed on the way home a bit, but it’s not abnormal.  They want the bleeding to be less than 1 drop a second and by noon today, Tally had completely stopped bleeding. 

He is now back in the barn with Miss Lucy where he will stay for the next week and heal where it will be easy to keep an eye on him for any unusual bleeding and infection.  Vet did not want me to let him out if we had a lot of mud around.  Since we do, I decided to keep him in for the full week.  Vet said 3 days.  I do tend to err on the side of caution. 

He is eating well, drinking a bunch of water and not acting like he is in any discomfort at the moment.  I can give him more pain med this evening if it looks like he needs it. 

All in all, it went flawlessly, and Tally is the bestest boy!