07 December 2009

Snippity

Warning: The weak of stomach may wish to stop here. On the other hand, anyone visiting this blog regularly should know to expect it by now.

As I recently mentioned, we found out at shearing that the boys were, um, a bit more boy than we had thought. According to Meg, this is sometimes done to maintain the testosterone levels in animals being raised for meat (as most ram lambs are), while cooking their little swimmers to minimize the risk of unwanted breedings.

In fact, over the past week they've become rather amorous with Posey, who suddenly decided that maybe they weren't so bad. Seeing as she's had a rather long dry spell, I suppose it's understandable. Shaun Fergus seemed to be the most attentive to their collective needs. It also turns out that whoever banded him was sloppy and only got half the scrotum, meaning not only has he earned the nickname "Lowball", there may be a chance that his boys weren't quite as cooked as they were supposed to be.

So I brought them in to work with me last night so that we could do a proper snip job this morning and, a few issues with IV catheters notwithstanding, everything went, well, swimmingly.

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Mountain oysters, anyone?

The one at lower left is the one with greatest potential to cause trouble. The others are all a bit underdeveloped as a result of the increased heat, but Ol' Lowball there is a fair bit larger, meaning there's some possibility that, despite his tender age and lack of experience and Posey's (hopefully) atrophied and unused ovaries, we could see an unplanned new addition to the farm come May. I'll keep y'all posted.

In the meantime, being a sharing sort, I thought my coworkers might get peckish during the night.

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I hear that brining improves the flavor.

Fortunately, the boys don't seem to be carrying a grudge for the injustice visited upon them, but I expect a little extra attention will be in order for the next few days.

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14 comments:

Chris said...

Oh, the suspense - will you be seeing a lamb or not?!

Alwen said...

Well, the nice thing about sheep, at least they don't generally hold grudges.

(Now watch the spate of grudge stories!)

JelliDonut said...

They don't look too upset about their new "altered" state. As for the rocky mountain oysters--no thanks. I'm trying to cut down.

that's J-O-S-H said...

Derriciouz! ::gobble::

Diane in Chico said...

They're pretty darned cute. The sheep, I mean.

Michelle M. said...

I've been looking for some stocking stuffers...

FiberQat said...

Aw nuts. Well hopefully all will work out swimmingly in the end.

Lisa/knitnzu said...

Really, what WILL you do with those things? The first photo looks like they're on deli paper!

I still regret (as I did the day I got home from the hospital) that I forgot to ask the doctor to keep my tonsils for show and tell. I was 5. Some things never change...

Sheepish Annie said...

Wow. Tomorrow, I'll be the only one at school able to say, "Guess what I saw last night?" and have a really interesting story to go with it.

Emily said...

Just fascinating. Who knew? Definitely will share this....carefully!

Anonymous said...

I always watch and chat with Dr. Melinda when my goaties are neutered. Since I'm out in the middle of nowhere, she will usually just chuck them into the woods. The thunk they make- they are sooo dense. Now, my little buckling still hasn't developed very big ones even though he is 9 mos old- her comment when she checked him Thursday was that they might make nice Christmas ornaments...

Fiber Ninja said...

Mmmm, mountain oysters. I haven't had them in almost 20 years. Dipped in a beaten egg, rolled in coarse cornmeal, deep fried to perfection. Hey, since they're cooked in hot oil, do they count as something to eat during Hannukah?

tornwordo said...

Awww. Mutilating your loved ones, nice. I hope they did get a little sumpin sumpin before the snippetry.

Laurie said...

Very funny! I learn a great deal here...I've seen the human version of this, but not the sheepy one. Similar, just size differences. Shape, too.