Special Feature » Animal Handling & Planning Making it as painless as possible Friday, 14 August 2009 If you are rearing sheep, goats or calves on your lifestyle property chances are that at this very moment you are considering castration of at least some of them.   Docking and castrating are best done around 7-10 days. Castration does make male animals easier to manage from about six months on but if you don’t have to do it, don’t.  If the animal is going to be killed before they get to that six month milestone there is no point subjecting them to castration.  But to make sure you don’t get any surprises separate the boys from the girls sooner rather than later. Surgical castration involves cutting the scrotum and removing the testicles and should be performed by a vet using pain control (for the animal, not you). It is quite common however for farmers to apply a rubber ring to the neck of the scrotum; this should be done when the animal is around a week old and certainly not once it is older than six weeks. The use of rings is much less traumatic than surgical castration and carries less risk of infection. If you are the slightest bit unsure – not to mention squeamish – about castrating your stock, or if you have stock other than sheep, cattle and goats, get your vet to do it.  It is actually illegal to castrate animals of any species other than sheep, goats and cattle if you are not a vet.