[Sca-cooks] A few more words on lambs

[Patrick Levesque]

Just to add to the amount of date we were gathering on the topic...

Olivier de Serre, in "Theatre d'Agriculture et Mesnage des Champs" (1600)
mentions about lamb that they leave their mother around the month of April
(around 4-5 months old - page 319) and are castrated on the month of March
of their second year (around 15-16 months old - page 323).

Castration seems the important point indicating whether an animal is young
or more mature. He doesn't mention it for lamb specifically, but things get
interesting in his chapter on veal. Young veals or bulls are to be castrated
at 1 1/2 year of age (les veaux ou taureaux seront parvenus au point d'être
châtrés... - p.290) - he subsequently calls these castrated animals
"boeufs". 

So even though there appears to be a certain laxism on terms in period, it
seems that castration is what would differentiate younger farm animals from
the more mature ones.

The more so, I'd add, that older animals used for food are generally those
that have given a few good years of hard work, or of wool - they are
fattened in their last summer to be butchered in the fall.

Petru