Bloodless castration of lambs: results of a questionnaire

Interviews of nine flockmasters who used bloodless castrators to castrate lambs revealed wide variation in the size of castrator used and the techniques employed. Eight flockmasters used inappropriately sized instruments which were cumbersome to operate and probably applied excessive crushing pressures over an unnecessarily large area of the lambs' scrotums. The methods of restraining lambs were often inefficient in terms of labour requirement. In 11 of 15 flocks, some lambs were not properly castrated and in six flocks, instances of injury and death attributed to castration were reported. Evaluation of bloodless castrators showed that the crushing pressure applied by castrators even those of the same size could vary by over 100%. The requirement for further research into bloodless methods of castration is highlighted as is the urgent need for training for operators.