When is the right time to castrate a calf?
“The old comment cowboys would make is, ‘When the knife is sharp,’” Eldon Cole, University of Missouri Extension livestock specialist, told Ozarks Farm & Neighbor. “And many add to it, ‘And you’re in the mood.’ We generally feel like early castration has a lot of advantages over a late castration, after the calf is 3 months of age. I would like to see these calves either castrated at birth, or the first time you work them, up at around 2 to 3 months of age.”
Anything later than that, he said, is problematic from a couple of standpoints.
“Bull calves, left out in the pasture with the cows and their sisters, spend a lot of time chasing cows that are coming in heat; they may run the risk of being injured by older bulls, especially if the older bulls think that they’re infringing on their territory. And, the longer a calf is left as a bull – especially if you get up over that 500-600 pound range – the beef quality grade ultimately could be compromised, as well as tenderness.”
Nevertheless, a lot of ranchers leave their male calves intact. Cole said the ranchers believe a bull calf will weigh 50 more pounds than a steer calf at weaning, but they are ignoring the potential losses.
“Ultimately, that calf will be castrated, and at some point he is going to suffer some stress and some loss in weight gains,” he said. “The research that I generally find in the literature, over years and years of data, is when you leave them intact until they’re six-weights or heavier and then castrate them, there is more morbidity, more sickness when they hit the feedlot, and at some point some of that weight gain that they had as a calf will be lost,” in effect passing the losses along to the backgrounder or feedlot operator.
But the premise of improved gain by bulls is a myth, according to Bryan Nichols, livestock consultant with the Samuel R. Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Okla.
“There’s actually some data from Oklahoma State that say that’s not true,” Nichols told OFN. “At weaning time there was no difference in weight between bulls, bulls that were banded at birth, and bulls that were banded at birth and then implanted. So their data would suggest that, as we typically suggest, castration early on in that calf’s life is the best way to go.”
Why do producers believe otherwise?
“It would just be the fact that if the calf has testicles then he has the ability to produce testosterone, which would then increase weight,” Nichols said. But removing the stress with early castration is more important, and he pointed out, “If they have any worries about taking the testosterone away from that calf, we can give them a growth-promoting implant and definitely offset that, and reduce aggressive behavior.” Within the Noble Foundation’s herd, calves are castrated as soon as the staff sees them; however, Nichols acknowledges, “That’s a lot of work for a lot of producers,” so 2-3 months of age is more common.
Cole said last fall at a program at Joplin, people representing Market News, livestock markets and feedlots were asked. “When do you want your male calves castrated?”
According to Cole, the answer was, “We just want it done right the first time; we don’t want accidents,” like a testicle withdrawn up into the belly where it has to be surgically removed.
“Some of them remarked about half the cattle they’d been getting in over the previous few weeks had all been left as bulls,” he added. “I don’t know that it would run that high, but certainly would feel that 30 to 40 percent of them might still be left as bulls.”
