band or castrate?

[JMHayes]

I've always castrated my calves, but recently I've heard people say that they've gone to banding them b/c it's easier and they can do it themselves with no one helping to hold the calf. It seems that it's more expensive to band and takes 21 to 23 days for them to drop instead of one or 2 weeks for the sac to heal. If I do band them should I implant the calves when I band him or wait untill they drop?

 

[tapeworm]

I never do any banding.. always used the knife so I cant help you with that. but i dont think theres any kind of implant that you can give a new baby calf so you might need to wait on the implant. Most need to be at least 30 or 45 days old. Good luck

 

[SF]

I band, but I wait until they are 6 months and sometimes older. I do not implant, as I feed my steers out and sell them as natural beef.

 

[msscamp]

We band at branding time - so the calves are anywhere from a week to a 1 1/2 months old. However, we have never used implants on anything.

 

[TheBullLady]

We also never band anymore.. (flies and infection being the primary reasons) we knife cut and also don't implant. I can't see that implanting would have any impact on whether you band or knife cut.

 

[SF]

We also never band anymore.. (flies and infection being the primary reasons) we knife cut and also don't implant. I can't see that implanting would have any impact on whether you band or knife cut.

How does knife cutting instead of banding reduce infection? What about the flies? I'm not arguing, just wondering. I would think banding would reduce exposure to infection.

 

[jerry27150]

knife cut is clean & quick & heals fast with an antiseptic applied, banding takes a long time & leaves an open wound, with no antiseptic, when sac falls or rots off. have seen lambs die from this infection. personally we use the burdizzo's, no wound or set back

 

[ctlbaron]

We band at 2 weeks old. Never had an infection or fly problem. They never miss a beat. I have no problem with cutting if you keep 'em clean and sprayed with blue lotion. It's just whatever works best for you.

 

[ChrisB]

I Implant the same time I band them. I do this at weaning.

 

[jcarkie]

i band & tag at 1-3 days, i implant at 1-2 months when i work the cows.i use to implant at the same time i banded but it is hard to fight the cow and hold the calf that long. the implant is suppose to give extra growth that early castaration takes away. i have never had problem with flys or infection. i bought calves banded with a callibrate and two died from tetanus i will never do that again.

 

[Susie David]

We band when the calves are two weeks old...never had any problems. Just make sure that you get both testicles into the bottom of the sack when you let the band off the tool...we bought a steer that had both undesended a real surprize when he started dancing with the heifers.
We don't implant, we sell natural beef also.

 

[EIEIO]

I've always cut but did have an older bull calf once that we had kept back to be butchered and we banded him and he did fine. I'm curious as nobody has mentioned giving a shot of penacillin when banding. I thought it was the norm?

J

 

[Craig-TX]

We give a tetanus shot if we're banding a big calf, nothing when we're using the cheerio bander except for the regular blackleg combo.

 

[EIEIO]

Craig, don't know if it's cause I saw a bottle of penacillin in the fridge today or what but I meant to say give a teatnus shot after banding not a shot of penacillin.

J

BTW- Hope I ain't the only one with cattle med's in the fridge. Not quite rich enough yet to have a fridge out by the working area for such things.

 

[Bama]

I work at a refrigerator plant. We can buy them scratched on occasions. So, I have one in the barn. One good source is around a college town. The newpaper is full of them. Those little dorm ones work well in the barn.

 

[JMHayes]

I picked up some meds from my vet today and asked him about banding. He said that castrating is the only way to go. He told me that it really brings the calf down and the only reason banding was invented was to protect the calf from screw worms years and years ago.

 

[dun]

I picked up some meds from my vet today and asked him about banding. He said that castrating is the only way to go. He told me that it really brings the calf down and the only reason banding was invented was to protect the calf from screw worms years and years ago.

As with most things, everyone has a different opinion based on their knowledge and experience, vets are no different. While cutting to vet that does thousands a year is no big deal, newer folks that only have to castrate a couple of head a year banding is simpler and has less worry attached to it.m We generally band but that's based on the time of year as much as anything else. We do have to cut a few "fat scrotumed" calves each year but keep a closer eye on them because of the flys and possibility of infection.

dun

 

[Stocker Steve]

We used to cut a lot of 4 and 5 wt bulls. I read that feeders will lose about 0.5 lb/day of gain for the first month after cutting. This year we tried the big latex Calibrate bands. I think they slowed the bulls down more than cutting, and we also ended up with 2 out of of 94 bulls that had infected stubs.

Do you have any information on the gain per day effect of banding bulls vs. buying steers?

 

[flaboy]

WHEN we steer (proper term "castrate" for those not from the south), we band. Never had a problem. As most here already know we sell ours as bulls as our market here doesn't care if it is a bull or steer. Last auction as they ran they ran the mt bulls in the auctioneer says "here's another black steer".

I have dinner in the pasture right now and he is black and a bull.

 

[flbullrider]

Since we're on the subject, any advice on how old is too old to clip 'em? I was taught if ya do it after 1 year the risk of complication goes WAY up.

Mike Bishop - http://www.flbullrider.com