When should lambs be docked?

We always tried to dock and castrate the lambs from one to two weeks old if we could. The older they were the harder it was on them.
Bill

We like to wait at least a couple weeks from the birth of our first lambs. That usually gives us a large group to dock.

as soon as possible for farm flocks however the big range bands wait until they are done lambing.

Might add you should leave a pound of tail on whethers. Trim it off where the wool starts growing all around the tail. I trimed the ewes shorter making it easier to sort sexs.

At 7 to 14 days of age.

Sorry to appear ignorant, but why do you dock a lambs tail ?

Out of curiosity how do you dock and castrate sheep? And what kind of working equipment is used for sheep? A chute and alley or do you catch and work on them in in the field? Do you cut or band?

I only run about 40 ewes I lamb in pasture and find mine are almost to hard to catch by day four. I dip navels as soon as I know about them and boost once they are up, bonded, and nursing.

I used a burdizzo to clamp the tail and a knife to trim it off. This because I lambed in a barn not out the range. The big bands use only a knife slashing across the twisted tail. Twisting the tail makes an angle cut across the artery reducing bleeding.
Castrating is done by removing the bottom half of the scrotum with a knife, squeesing the testes out and holding the scrotum to prevent hernia. Then you grip the testes with your teeth and pull them out until the cord breaks.
The only equipment needed is some panels to make an alley about 12 feet wide and pen on the end to catch out of.

Day 2. We weigh, band the tail and testies, dip the cord and install and ear tag (left for ewe lamb, right for ram lamb).
Billy

We banded tails once when the weather was warmer and had fly strike on a lot of them. We then had to pull/cut off the banded tails.
Banding takes too much time if you have many sheep.