Friday, October 5, 2007

De-horned and De-maned..ouch

I had to take my ram lamb to get him cut today..both horns and well, you know. I was expecting blood and pain and any number of other unpleasant things but the horn cutting was actually painless, clean and basically no big deal. The vet used this gigli wire to saw the horns off. You can run your fingers up and down this wire and not cut yourself but it just zips those horns right off. He used the screws to hold onto the wire. Then he showed me how it would also cut through a wood post. He gave me one and told me "just do it yourself next time." So, now I can check off one more thing on my I have learned to do and don't need the vet for list For those veteran sheep owners out there, this is probably no news to you...but I thought it was pretty cool.

1 comment:

Juliann said...

Hi Sheila,

We've had to occasionally trim horns and scurs since we started breeding shetlands. Like a lot of things, the first time is the hardest.
The wire saw is also our weapon of choice. It goes quickly and is painless, although I don't think the rams like the smell.