A sad day yesterday. We had our vet come to castrate 5 lambs and as she has done many times before, gave them all a tranquilizer to sedate them and proceeded to cut the scrotum. The first one became very short of breath and when his heartbeat became irregular, we gave him epinephrine, but lost him. Then checking the remaining 4, another was also experiencing trouble breathing. He died before we even got the epinephrine in him. By now I was frantic and the vet was pretty shook up too. The remaining lambs were fine and we castrated them with no problems. I pulled another one from the flock to do minus the sedative, just a little novacaine locally. He tolerated it well. From now on I will only use the lidocaine (novacaine) The lambs were 2 months old and weighed 40-60 lbs. They all received the same dose and it was the biggest two that died. What went wrong? Were they too old ? Should I have kept them off feed prior to this? They had just been fed. When we lose one thats been sick, its something that you can accept, but I feel terrible about losing these guys who were the picture of health and happy as clams bouncing around the pasture. We were having them castrated as they were going to be raised by a lady for their wool and for pets. I usually crimp the ram lambs, but occassional miss one or two so do have them cut if they are going to be kept and not for meat.

-- Kate Henderson (sheeplady@catskill.net), June 16, 2000

Answers

Kate, Oh my....I am SO sorry...

That must have been a horrible experience for you. My heart really goes out to you...

I have no experience in the process you described. We band our lambs at about 10-14 days (dock tails at 2 or 3). I am just so sorry to hear of your loss. I hope someone else on this forum can enlighten us all.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), June 17, 2000.

We have goats but must castrate the buck kids. When we cut ours, we did them as soon as the testicles descended into the scrotum. After having one fat little fellow nearly bleed to death when we did him, we started banding. That also has its share of problems. We use no painkiller with either method, just hold the kid's right legs in the right hand, left legs in the left hand with the kid's back against the holder's chest and the head tucked behind the holder's shoulder. We also have given Mom tetanus so that the nursing kid is protected but give him an antitoxin shot to be sure. A bottle or being immediately comforted by Mom helps a lot to settle the kids after castrating or disbudding. One thing for goat owners--be sure to disbud, then castrate. The rise in blood pressure during disbudding can encourage bleeding if castration is done first.

I used the University of Missouri vet school for many of my animals when we lived there and one thing I picked up is that it's easy to overdose anaesthetics. They used Rompun a lot and made a point of having the animal's head positioned so that it couldn't aspirate fluids from the rumen into the lungs, even after the procedure. Having just fed them might have contributed to this problem.

Try to get them done when they are much smaller. The stress of handling if they aren't pets and especially at their size could have a considerable influence. Regardless, it's no fun and you certainly have my sympathy both for the emotional strain on you and the economic loss.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), June 17, 2000.

Like Sheepish, I just wanted to say sorry. I can only imagine how sad you must be. We band our lambs once the testicles descend and have never had a bad experience. I would guess your vet was also quite upset. Give her/him a day to talk to colleagues and I would suggest you have a nice talk with them about what they found out. There are so few vets in this country who actually do a good job of treating sheep, it is kind of like on the job training. You also might try contacting Ann Wells at ATTRA who is a vet who specializes in sheep and getting her opinion. I'm sorry I don't have the 1-800 number where I am visiting but I think you could search for ATTRA on the web.

Please share what you find with us. Maybe you can help prevent it from happening to some one else. Again, I am sorry! Kim

-- kim (fleece@eritter.net), June 17, 2000.

Kate, My sympathy over loosing the lambs, it is always a difficult and sad experience. Just another thought, it could have been an allergic reaction to the sedative. I raise goats and only a few sheep but band them as young as possible, give them tetnus toxoid and antitoxin to make sure. There are as many people who do not like banding but it works for me. karen

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

Sorry Kate! We know goat folks who have started sedating their kids do disbud also, you can only warn them, and then you start sounding pushy. If you wait to long to disbud or castrate and have to go to my vet, she charges you just like a surgery, sedation, in the office while being monitored, and a stay overnight. When you hear the cost it gets folks to disbud and castrate earilier like they should. Vicki McGaugh

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

Thanks to all of you for advice and sympathy. In retrospect, I think it was a combination of the lambs large size, full rumen, and perhaps an insensitivity to the Rompun. The vet also used Torgo( I think thats the name) in combination, but in such a small dose in a tuberculin syringe. Marilyn had a good point about keeping the heads up for a while to prevent aspiration. While they were sedated prior to the castration I had them in a pen and tried to make sure their heads were up but might not have been sufficient if they had full rumens. The remaining lambs done are fine today. Live and learn!

-- Kate Henderson (sheeplady@catskill.net), June 17, 2000.

I am so sorry about your loss,,that is always hard!

I have found over the many years, that it is not a good idea to give sheep any kind of tranquilizers,, it is too easy to overdose, and the sheep tend to be very sensitive to it, and they will die quickly.

I know alot of people have their own reasons for doing things,,, but I went back to simply banding the lambs. Nothing to numb the pain. They normaly go numb naturally in the area you band in about 1 to 2 hours. Mine have never shown any stress after that time. Have never had any problems or losses doing my lambs this way. Have been banding for over 25 years now.

-- Bergere (autumnhaus@aol.com), June 19, 2000.

Have not been there for a while - but why are you having the vet castrate? We had sheep for about 300 years (or it seemed that way!), and always used bands for both tails (at 3 days) and testes at 7 to 10 days. Never lost one! Pigs! - now that's another story, and sheep (sorry, Sheepish!) folks might find that a bit brutal. But I would question the vet. Do it yourself at very little cost. I have never had a problem doing that. Others out there? Have you ever had a vet castrate sheep?

-- Brad (Homefixer@SacoRiver.net), June 19, 2000.

We never had the vet castrate our lambs or goat kids, just did it ourselves. Part of homesteading is to do as much of the work yourselves as possible. Besides, most of us don't have spare money laying around to pay a vet to do something we can do perfectly well ourselves! I was a little shocked that anyone would use anesthesia for castrating -- we cut our lambs and they were back up and bouncing around in minutes. I don't think they were too badly stressed from the procedure! There is a time and a place for anesthesia, but for minor stuff like that it really shouldn't be necessary.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 19, 2000.

I am sorry to hear about your lambs also. This is my first time for castrating goats and I need to ask an ignorant question. How does one tel when the balls have droped into the strotum? Thank you anybody. Star Brashear

-- Star Brashear (honeybun@rtr.net), March 31, 2001.

Star you simply feel for them. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 31, 2001.