Lead
"Pig straw bale, sheep are good", this is a rural proverb, which means that the pig farmer is stupid, while the sheep farmer seems to be smarter, and there is a difference between a pig and a sheep.
So what's the difference between a pig and a sheep?
It turns out that during castration, the pigs will scream and the sheep will be quiet, so why is that?
And there is also a "gelding festival" in Tibetan areas, on which people gather to enjoy the fun of castration of sheep, why is that?
Why are the pigs castrated screaming?
Xiao Liu went to school one year, and was ready to return to his hometown for the New Year during the Spring Festival.
Xiao Liu's father was very happy to see him coming, and asked him to help with a job, that is, castrating a piglet, at first Xiao Liu thought that he was letting the piglet out, let it mate with the boar, and then take it out after a while when he was pregnant.
But Xiao Liu's father told him that it was just the castration of the piglet, and when Xiao Liu heard this, he couldn't help but feel creepy and asked, "Father, why are you doing this?"
The father said: "This sow was bought by me before to prepare for its breeding, the milk is extraordinarily sufficient, but the result was that I found out that I was pregnant before yesterday, and I thought that I would leave it when I was pregnant, so I didn't care, but the day before yesterday I found that the piglets had diarrhea, and there was no pregnancy, I thought it was diarrhea, but it turned out that the feces pulled by the sow were actually large intestines."
Xiao Liu said: "Could it be that the nutrients in the stomach have been absorbed and run out."
"That's right," said the father, "so I decided to castrate it so that the sow could live as long as she could and milk more."
When Xiao Liu saw this poor little pig, he felt a little guilty in his heart, and tears were about to flow out.
But the pig wailed, and Xiao Liu was startled, and then his father first asked Xiao Liu to tie the pig's mouth, and then dragged the pig outside the house.
Xiao Liu's father began to clamp the pig's testicles with pliers, the pig struggled in a very painful state, and kept screaming on his mouth, and then Xiao Liu's father released the pliers with his hand, and cut the testicles with a knife, blood splashed everywhere, and then the pig screamed even more badly, and even struggled even more.
When Xiao Liu saw this, he couldn't help but feel creepy, and at the same time felt very guilty in his heart, and couldn't help but feel a little unbearable in the face of this scene in front of him, so he continued to castrate it instead of his father.
Sheep castration is quiet.
It is said that there is a "gelding festival" in Tibetan areas, when people gather together to castrate goats, is it just a simple castration of goats, or is there something else.
From ancient times to the present, there will be a habit of castrating sheep in the breeding industry, this is because sheep live and grow in different environments, food and climate are very different, resulting in differences in the growth rate and reproductive ability of sheep.
According to these different breeding environments and climates, the ancients divided sheep into five categories, namely the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Loess Plateau, North China, East China and Southern China.
Most of the sheep in the southern region are domestic, mainly to obtain wool, dairy products and other items, and do not need to be eaten.
The yak sheep in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is now called the Tibetan lamb, mainly to solve the physiological needs, and the sheep in other regions are to improve the economic value of the sheep, and the sheep will be castrated soon after birth.
Generally in June of each year, the sixth lunar month, when the weather is relatively sunny, can avoid sheep infection due to rainy weather, causing other diseases.
In Tibetan areas, it is more popular to castrate sheep, and it is recorded in ancient times: "After chopping the castrated mutton with a knife, and then roasting it, the combination of the two becomes a delicious mutton jerky."
Nowadays it is even more popular to not even chop the meat of the lamb, but simply grill the whole sheep. ”
Therefore, the traditional customs handed down from the "Gelding Festival" can be seen.
But what is the reason for castration of sheep?
The key point is still in the physiological structure of sheep, sheep after breeding, the growth is relatively fast, the growth period of lambs is generally between 6 months and 8 months, which means that sheep will consume a lot of feed, and the cost of these feeds is very high.
In addition, after the sheep are reproduced, if the ewes, lambs, and breeding rams are not raised separately, it may lead to a significant increase in the number of sheep, which will also increase the impact of the competition between the sheep for feed.
Therefore, some breeders have proposed a sheep castration program, which removes the production of semen after castration, effectively stifles the ability of rams to reproduce, saves the cost of grain and grass, and also reduces the damage caused by the competition for feed between sheep.
There is also in the reproduction of sheep, ewes can only give birth to one litter at a time, but this is a minority after all, and most of the other fertilitys are born with one litter without problems.
Therefore, the meat type of ram generally gives birth to three litters, while the reproductive ability of ewes is much worse in comparison.
This also leads to a big gap in the price of mutton produced in slaughter, for example, if you want a pound of mutton, you need three catties of ewe meat, and a pound of ram meat may only need a little more than a catty.
This also leads to the fact that when farmers breed ewes and rams, it is much more cost-effective to choose ewes than rams, which also leads to the scarcity of rams.
However, the fertility of sheep is relatively strong, and they can breed thirty or forty sheep in three years, which leads to an increasing number of sheep.
Therefore, the method of castration can be used to get rid of these rams, and the taste of the lamb is more delicious.
Why are sheep so quiet when castrated.
So why are sheep so much quieter than pigs when they are castrated?
There are three main reasons for this.
First, sheep are timid.
Sheep are relatively timid animals, afraid that other animals will devour themselves, so they will rarely take the initiative to attack other animals, but will take the initiative to escape and protect themselves.
Second, the sound is also quiet.
Sheep are very quiet animals and rarely make noises except for the occasional "bleating" sound.
Pigs are different, pigs are always very "noisy" from birth, and the noisy situation of pigs is easy to attract the attention of other animals, because pigs seem to be talking to themselves, and pigs have no other animals to respond.
Therefore, for farmers, the cost of raising pigs is relatively low, and there will be no competition between pigs and other animals.
Third, the structure of the genitals is also different.
The male genitals of the sheep are relatively small and relatively flat, so it is relatively easy to castrate, so the ram behaves quieter when castration.
The genitals of the pig are relatively large and prominent, so the action is relatively large when castrating, a large part of the genitals need to be removed, and the operation is more complicated, and a lot of skills are required, which leads to the pig screaming in pain when castration.
epilogue
Castration is a more important thing for pig and sheep breeding, which can reduce the economic burden of farmers, but also improve the taste of mutton, and wait until the sheep is castrated, the body can also gain weight as soon as possible.
But the process of castration is more painful and less humane, and there may be better animal castration techniques in the future.