Today, some city residents are starting to engage in agriculture, in particular livestock breeding. And here they have to deal with hitherto unfamiliar things.
Many people are just learning for the first time that cattle are castrated. And some even have their tails docked. Naturally, new farmers have no idea what a castrated goat or castrated ram is called. Also, not everyone knows why such operations need to be carried out.
What does Dude stand for?
Today, at the suggestion of film translators, the word “Dude” is translated into Russian as “dude.” Philip K. In 1998, the Coen Brothers' film "The Big Lebowski" was released. ... Later, the same word was used in the translation of other films, such as "Dudes" (eng.
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Why is castration of a ram necessary?
At first glance, for someone uninitiated in the intricacies of sheep farming, it seems that this procedure is not only unnecessary at all, but even harmful for business. After all, the main task of any livestock breeder is to increase the number of livestock.
So should males be castrated? The answer is clear - yes!
The main reason why this procedure is necessary is that the meat of sexually mature, uncleaned rams acquires a specific unpleasant smell and taste, which significantly deteriorates the quality of the meat, for which, in general, rams are bred. In addition, if a ram is cold, it begins to gain live weight faster and accumulate fat better. It is also important that the simplest and most accessible, and therefore cheaper, feed is enough to fatten it. Another reason for carrying out this procedure is that males stop fighting among themselves, aggression goes away, and behavior calms down.
The breeder can safely keep the females in the same room with the females, graze them together, without fear of unscheduled matings.
More on the topic: What is the standard weight of a ram?
The main reasons why sheep farmers limit the coverage of females in some cases.
One of these reasons is keeping different breeds of animals. Accidental mixing of different breeds can harm the herd.
The second reason. Sheep are very precocious animals, and their puberty occurs earlier than the ewe is ready to bear offspring.
If at this age a ram covers a ewe and she bears eggs, in addition to a weak, non-viable offspring, the breeder will also receive a female with poor health.
In addition, stud rams are the elite of the breeding herd. And they are carefully selected among the strongest and most fertile individuals.
And if the remaining males are not castrated, there is a high risk that the ewe will be mated to a weak ram with poor quality characteristics.
And this is a bad offspring and direct losses for the owner. Breeding males are kept and grazed separately from the main herd, allowing access to females only during the hunting season. And don’t forget that one sire can easily support 15-20 sheep, so there is simply no need to keep a large number of males for reproduction.
Postoperative period
All sheep subjected to the procedure are placed in pre-prepared, clean and dry pens. Animals are examined daily until the testicles completely atrophy or postoperative wounds heal.
The most careful care after intervention is required for rams with open wound surfaces. Males may require additional treatment with an antiseptic, and in case of bloody discharge, mucus or pus, special treatment.
More detailed recommendations regarding care and feeding in the preoperative and postoperative periods will be given by the veterinarian, depending on the age and the chosen method of castration of lambs or rams.
Methods
Castration of lambs and adult males is carried out using several methods. At a young age, preference is given to percutaneous methods; at a more mature age, open surgery is used.
Open way
Open operations involve making transverse incisions in the lower part of the scrotum or cutting off its bottom. Due to the low prolapse of the scrotum and sclerosis of the skin during castration of rams, longitudinal incisions are not recommended. In this case, there is a high probability of accumulation of blood clots in the cavity with the subsequent development of infectious inflammation.
Before making the incisions, anesthesia is drawn into a syringe and injected in several places of the surgical field. If it is necessary to castrate old rams, the concentration is increased.
The testicles are removed through the incisions, the spermatic cords are tied with a ligature or pinched with forceps, and the resulting wound is covered with an antiseptic. For large wound surfaces in adult sheep, it is recommended to insert a piece of gauze soaked in iodoform or antibiotics into the cavity.
In a closed way
In most cases, bloodless castration is used to castrate lambs or young rams. To carry out such procedures you will need a special tool.
Bloodless methods include:
- Compression of the scrotal neck (elastration).
The essence of the intervention is to put an elastic band on the scrotum of lambs as close to the abdomen as possible. As a result, blood access to the testicles is stopped, they gradually decrease in size and die. In lambs and young rams, this process takes 2 to 3 weeks. To carry out the procedure in a closed way, an elastrator is used. It is used to stretch tight rubber rings into which the scrotum is threaded.
It is not recommended to castrate adult rams using this method, since due to the large amount of connective tissue, the neck is not compressed tightly enough with an elastic band. The difficulty lies in the fact that after reaching 6-7 months, the testes of rams increase in size so much that it is quite problematic to pass them through the ring.
This method is considered the most gentle, since the rubber rings cut off the blood supply to the nerves, and after 20-30 minutes the lambs stop feeling discomfort.
- Crushing of the spermatic cord.
This method is also only suitable for lambs or young rams. To destroy the vas deferens of sheep you will need special forceps. The duration of its retention on the cord and the possible need for repeated use depend on the model of the instrument.
To carry out the procedure, the rams are placed on their backs and the testicles are retracted to the bottom of the scrotum. The forceps are applied to the cord as close to the testis as possible and sharply squeezed until it crunches. After 3-4 weeks the rams are examined. If the testicles have not decreased in size, repeated intervention will be required, but in an open way. With successful intervention, complete death of the testicles occurs within 5-6 months.
- Crushing of the testicular parenchyma.
The most suitable method for sheep, which, however, is not widely used due to the painfulness of the procedure and the high probability of restoration of the testes. The method involves destroying the testicles by squeezing them between the rounded jaws of the forceps. The tool is selected depending on the age of the lambs, since the size of the testicles increases noticeably over time. After squeezing, the tissue should be loose without compaction.
Before castrating sheep, it is necessary to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and choose the one that will have the least negative health consequences.
Etymology
There is no consensus on the origin of the word "dude".
The word dude
, attested at the beginning of the 20th century in thieves' jargon in the meaning of "prostitute", was examined in 1931 by A.P. Barannikov, who analyzed it as a derivative of the Gypsy word
chavo
- "guy", that is, "a thief's girlfriend" [1] [ 3].
The transition of a word from thieves' argot to youth is a process that was noted in the 1920s - 1930s by E. D. Polivanov [1] [4]. Firstly, the reflection of unstressed a
as
in
the position before the labial occurs sporadically in Russian colloquial speech, cf.
Chumodan
[1] [5],
suvat
[
specify
]).
The formation “dude” with the paired female form “dude” naturally fits into this series, cf. thieves' argot: maz
- “man”,
mazikha
- “woman”.
Among the dudes (that is, in the “Western-minded youth environment” of the 1950s - 1960s), the “decoding” of this word was as follows: “a person who respects high American culture” [6].
According to the writer Vasily Aksenov, the word “dude” became widespread from the slang of musicians (“labukhs”).
This word comes from the ordinary “man”. When you blow into a trumpet or saxophone for several hours in a row, your tongue swells in your mouth and you don’t have the strength to pronounce the usual “man,” but what comes out is “ch-e-e-k,” “chweek,” and finally “dude.”
According to one version, the word could originally mean a castrated ram or camel; Fima Zhiganets considers such an interpretation “ridiculous” [7].
Laying out males using a scalpel
Very often, veterinarians act the old fashioned way - they perform an operation on a ram that has reached six months, only by treating the skin with alcohol before cutting it. Few people think about doing anything to relieve the pain of the procedure.
But nevertheless, some people still believe that since animals are under the power of man and serve him, even as food, then he is simply obliged to reduce their suffering as much as possible. Therefore, shortened castration was invented not so long ago.
This procedure differs from the traditional method of surgery in that during it only the male’s scrotum is removed. The ram's testicles themselves remain intact, but are pushed up. Due to this, the male, although he produces testosterone, is not able to fertilize the sheep.
And finally, everyone knows about castration itself, during which the ram’s scrotum is cut, the testicles are released and removed. As a result of the operation, an open wound is left, which can become infected from the outside with dust, dirt, flies and other insects.
A person who decides to engage in cattle breeding should know more about his business. And that’s why it’s so important to keep abreast of all the innovations that scientists and veterinarians offer sheep farmers.
Dude
- a slang synonym for the words “guy”, “young man”, “man”. [1] Possible as an address and as a title instead of a name. Applicable to any male person. It has an argotic coloration [1] [2].
The word came into use among young people starting in the 1960s during the period of growth of the “beatnik” youth subculture. The corresponding feminine form is chuvikha
(but how to address a woman is rude).
Complexity of the operation
Routine castration of rams is somewhat different from removal of testicles in other types of farm and domestic animals. This is due to the drooping of the scrotum, the large size of the testes in sheep and the presence of connective tissue around the vas deferens and testicular parenchyma.
The simplest procedures include elastrating sheep with rubber rings and crushing the spermatic cord without opening the scrotum. The most difficult is considered to be the defertility of adult rams over 4-5 years old and the castration of males for medical reasons.
Features of the anatomical structure of the gonads
The shape of the testes is oval, in young ones it is more elongated, and with maturity it becomes rounder.
The sizes have a strong age dependence - during the period of mass castration (2-5 months) they usually do not exceed a chicken egg. The body of the testis consists of parenchymal tissue, separated by stroma, and connective tissue. A distinctive feature of rams is the weak development of stroma and the prevalence of parenchyma, which makes the testes less dense and durable. The seminal appendage is represented by a network of convoluted vas deferens, forming a dense formation. It has separate nutrition due to the vessels of the vas deferens, which is separated from the umbilical branch.
The scrotum is a large skin sac that contains the gonads of the sheep. A specific feature is the low descent of the testes and the formation of a scrotal neck. Layers and shells:
- leather. Relatively thin in young rams, covered with small hair, containing fat and sweat glands, divided by a median suture;
- The muscular layer is a durable membrane connected to the skin and forming separate cavities for each testis. In old rams it contains developed fatty tissue;
- common tunica vaginalis - a layer formed by protrusion of the inner part of the abdominal wall when the testis descends;
- special vaginal membrane - covers the gonads along with the appendage.
Why do sheep farmers sometimes resist covering females?
Often different animals are kept on the same farm. A sheep farmer, for example, purchased individuals of more advanced breeds. But he still has some young stock left from the previous plant. Mixing different breeds of animals is not only pointless, but also harmful.
Some females, being early ripening, are ready for mating at a fairly young age. But fertilization ahead of time will undermine the health of the animal; its offspring may be weak and non-viable.
There is also the danger of covering the ewe with a weak ram. This can also lead to the birth of a low-quality offspring.
To prevent this from happening, the farmer is forced to keep males and females separately. And he also has to allocate pastures for grazing in different places. And this requires attracting additional labor units and financial investments. Therefore, the easiest way out here would be to castrate outbred or simply excess rams. Indeed, for the normal functioning of a herd of 15 sheep, one full-fledged adult ram is quite enough.
How long does the intervention last?
The duration of castration depends on many factors: the chosen method, the age of the sheep, the need for preliminary anesthesia, the presence of diseases of the reproductive organs and the likelihood of unforeseen situations during the intervention. The operating time also depends on the practical experience of the person performing the procedure.
On average, castration of lambs using bloodless methods takes 5-10 minutes, and open surgery with removal of the testicles takes 20 to 30 minutes. Only a specialist can determine more accurately how long the intervention lasts.
Contraindications
When selecting lambs for castration, both indications and contraindications should be taken into account. Intervention at too early an age is not recommended due to possible delays in the growth and development of the animal. Castration of lambs is not carried out 10 days before scheduled vaccination and for 2 weeks after it.
1-2 days before the planned intervention, all sheep are carefully examined: the temperature is measured, the position of the testes and their condition are determined. Do not operate on weakened, emaciated or sick individuals. Intervention is not recommended if the lambs go to slaughter after reaching 5-6 months.
Surgery in adulthood is associated with a high likelihood of postoperative complications and the need for subsequent long-term treatment.
