Hot News

1.08.2008

(Editor’s Note: In connection with her announcement that in 2008, the Maryland 4-H lamb tail docking policy would be voluntary, Bruce Hotchkiss, editor of The Delmarva Farmer, posed a series of questions to Extension sheep specialist Susan Schoenian. Here are edited versions of her responses.)

Delmarva Farmer: What prompted the change to a voluntary policy?
Susan Schoenian: Carrying the policy out in a fair and consistent manner in all 23 counties and at all 4-H fairs and shows in Maryland requires a tremendous amount of time and money. For example, a committee of three Extension educators and 4-H volunteers is assigned at each weigh-in and show.
In addition, the policy has simplified a complex problem in show lambs. A short tail dock does not necessarily equal rectal prolapse.
There are many contributing factors to rectal prolapses: Diet (high energy, lack of forage, legumes), sex (ewe lambs), age (lambs), straining (over-exercise, coughing, diarrhea), short tail docks, implanting (not common), genetics (14 percent heritable), and management (e.g. feeding on a slant puts strain on muscles).
Unfortunately, enforcing the policy has taken precedence over educating 4-Hers and breeders about good management practices. Extension is supposed to be about education.
The research base is weak. The 2003 study published in the Journal of Animal Science only established a link between dock length and prolapses in feed lot lambs.
Diet plus short dock equals prolapse, but not short dock equals prolapse. The results were not consistent at all research sites, nor was the methodology identical.
An unpublished study (a master of science thesis in Texas) failed to establish the link between short docks/high energy diets and prolapses.
In Wyoming, lambs are required to have three coccygeal/caudal vertebrae.
This will occur at different tail lengths on a lamb. Willard Lemaster’s scanning of lambs in 2006 confirmed this.
He measured the first 0.7 inches on each lamb at several locations and found that lambs had different numbers of vertebrae in 0.7 inches. Thus, what’s the significant of 0.7 inches — our policy rule?
DF: Did Maryland’s mandatory tail docking policy create difficulties in out-of-state venues?
SS: In 2007, the policy was not applied to 4-H breeding sheep, the major out-of-state venue issue. Many disagreed with this, but breeding sheep have never been the problem, probably because they are fed and managed differently from market lambs.
Not that many market lambs compete in out-of-state venues, but the policy can make it difficult for 4-Hers to find lambs to purchase — good ones — especially from out-of-state breeders.
Some 4-H families claim that breeders charge more for Maryland-docked lambs. I don’t know if this is true or not. The difficulty in finding lambs is a legitimate one, but did not affect the decision to make the policy voluntary.
From the out-of-state perspective, Maryland should be praised for its efforts to address this problem while other states lacked the courage and leadership.
However, the policy has created many ill feelings. A voluntary policy may help to mend broken fences, though again, this isn’t the main reason for the change — primarily it’s the resources issue.

DF: Is a rectal prolapse always evident?
SS: Yes and no. Once a lamb prolapses, it will continue to do so, so long as the prolapse occurred when the lamb was in a natural free standing position and did not push a portion of its rectum out because it was coughing, standing or sitting on a slant, or being slapped hard on the back.
Once a lamb starts to prolapse, it could take several weeks before the exposed tissue stays out permanently. If left untreated, eventually the lamb’s entire digestive tract could come out. As far as defining a prolapse, we are going to follow the criteria that the researchers used in the 2003 study. If the voluntary policy results in an increased incidence of rectal prolapses, defining what a prolapse is could prove to be a bigger can of worms than the original policy. Of course, prolapses are the reason why the policy was started in the first place. We can’t have them at fairs, in the public view. We need to define them regardless of the policy.

DF: Do you support the voluntary policy?
SS: I’m willing to give it a try. It’s only for one year. We will re-evaluate it at the end of 2008. Though we won’t officially be measuring tails or eliminating any lambs (for dock length), we do plan to measure tails to determine voluntary compliance. On the other hand, I might have preferred an intermediate step, e.g. measuring tails only once, at county weigh-ins/taggings. This would have significantly reduced our resource requirement, while maintaining the integrity of the policy. Basically, we are putting our faith in sheep breeders — asking them to do the right thing for the welfare of the lambs and children.