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You are here: Home / Animals / Why Do Sheep Farmers Chop of their Lamb’s Tails and What is the Practice of Cropping A Lamb’s Tail Called?

Why Do Sheep Farmers Chop of their Lamb’s Tails and What is the Practice of Cropping A Lamb’s Tail Called?

June 15, 2020 by Karen Hill

Sheep are born with very long tails, long enough to reach the ground.

Why Do Sheep Farmers Chop of their Lamb's Tails

When a lamb is born, the owner puts a rubber band tightly around the base of the lamb’s tail so that the circulation to the rest of the tail is stopped.

In about a week or two, the tail, made mostly of soft cartilage, dies and falls off below the band.

An owner will sometimes opt for using a pair of cauterizing scissors for a quicker, albeit more painful, crop.

This cropping keeps the lamb’s tail from dragging in muck and dung.

The practice of chopping off a lamb’s tail is called docking, is practiced for health reasons.

Animal rights groups oppose these procedures, but farmers say docking solves many veterinary problems, and that the pain is only temporary.

Apparently, flies like to lay their eggs in mucky sheep tails.

Still, it doesn’t seem right, somehow.

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  • How Many Different Species of Sheep Are There in the World and Where Do Sheep Live?
  • What Are Tails For?
  • How Was the Sheep Important in the History of Agriculture and How Much Wool Does a Sheep Produce in a Year?
  • Where does the term cat-o’-nine-tails come from and What does cat-o’-nine-tails mean?

Filed Under: Animals

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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