When do you castrate your wethers?

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Realistically, you can castrate at anytime. Some people have done it as early as 2 weeks and have never had a problem. Though you typically lose good bone growth by doing it so young. I can look at a wether and typically tell you if it was done early or later. The reason for later is to allow for better and larger urinary tract development. Around 3 months old, a buck starts to become a buck. Testosterone is being produced in larger quantities. Fueling bone and hair growth. 3 months old is a standard castration age as well because they start to pee on themselves, and you, and doing unflattering things to their... well you get the idea. But if you have the patients its better to wait till they are 5 or 6 months old. They can be stinking pretty good by this point but you get about 10% more growth outta their urinary tract in those 2-3 months.

Now the rationality of it is, wethers are more susceptible to urinary calculi (stones). So the longer you wait the more developed and larger their tract is. Its just another step in helping to prevent blockages from stones. UC is a death sentence for a wether. If you have a wether that gets it, its about $1500 for the surgery to clear the blockage, flush the bladder and remove the tip of the pizzle. But the real problem is still in the bladder. I can only recall one story about someone who actually saved their wether after surgery. And they put what really comes down to, an unreasonable amount of time and effort into their animal. Most wethers get blocked up again within a month and die.

Regardless of when you decide to wether, a balanced diet and supplementing with AC (Ammonium Chloride) is a major key in keeping your wether stone free.