bull calfs

[branguscowgirl]

Anyone who argues that head to head a calf castrated at 2 days is going to grow as big as a bull calf to 5 months. You sure havent been around enough cattle to know bulls get hormones and muscle up better than a calf who has had it taken away at birth. Sorry, thought you guys knew your cattle better... :? Cutting them out started many years ago when cowboys didnt want to wrestle a big calf, you can get hurt. SO, they did it to baby calves they could handle.

Research shows that calves steered at any age grow just as fast as bulls calves. Study up !!

If that is true, why do people replace the hormones?

Good question! I was wondering that myself........ :???:
I might add, everyone I know wants a "hormone free" piece of meat.

 

[ga.prime]

I might add, everyone I know wants a "hormone free" piece of meat.

That's what they want because the highly funded vegetarian/animal rights fringe groups tell them that's what they want. In reality, no such piece of meat exists.

 

[Andyva]

Anyone is free to do it how they want. Both methods will work. Just don't get mad at the cattle buyer when he looks at your expert banding job and sees a bunch of stags. Bands can fail. In all fairness, there are people that could fail with a knife, too. A lot of problems that I see come from people that do them at a day old, and their cows are too mean for them to handle the calves.

 

[kenny thomas]

Anyone is free to do it how they want. Both methods will work. Just don't get mad at the cattle buyer when he looks at your expert banding job and sees a bunch of stags. Bands can fail. In all fairness, there are people that could fail with a knife, too. A lot of problems that I see come from people that do them at a day old, and their cows are too mean for them to handle the calves.

Very good point. I see several each year that have 1 or sometimes even both nuts still inside that were band young. I still dont see the issue with counting to 2 before you let them go. Unless as you said the momma cow is snorting at your back.

 

[ga.prime]

Anybody that sells a bunch of stags and didn't know they were a bunch of stags beforehand is a blooming idiot.

 

[kenny thomas]

I might add, everyone I know wants a "hormone free" piece of meat.[/quote

I have seen it reported that an implant has about 1% of the amount of hormones that a young lady has once every 21 days.
I implant and band or knife cut soon after birth and implant every 90 days until they leave here.

 

[kenny thomas]

Anybody that sells a bunch of stags and didn't know they were a bunch of stags beforehand is a blooming idiot.

They will argue with me and me feeling the nut in the belly. We had a few that were culled out of a preconditioned sale last night that were stags.

 

[branguscowgirl]

I might add, everyone I know wants a "hormone free" piece of meat.

That's what they want because the highly funded vegetarian/animal rights fringe groups tell them that's what they want. In reality, no such piece of meat exists.

Well, that's not exactly true....... But not worth arguing with you about it. You have YOUR opinions, and you don't really sound like the kind of guy that is open to someone elses.

 

[cowgirl8]

There have been times when i cant get one of the nuts down. When this happens he's left a bull. I will not leave one out. I did that when we first started banding and seeing that testicle fall out after the band is gone was horrifying. I'll have at least one a year i cant get both. Calf gets bigger and they dont get docked much for being a bull, he makes it up in size... So this makes me wonder how people are banding and leaving one and they arent falling out when the band is gone?
I never liked ralgro, we used it when we cut calves when they were small to make up for lost growth from castration.. We havent used it for well over 15 years. I'm not trusting of the artificial hormones, figure natural is better. And, we eat what we grow, dont want it anywhere near anything we eat. I dont even want to handle it.

 

[Shanghai]

I shot my cousin with the ralgro gun on accident when we were kids but he was right before that anyway ;-)

 

[Shanghai]

There have been times when i cant get one of the nuts down. When this happens he's left a bull. I will not leave one out. I did that when we first started banding and seeing that testicle fall out after the band is gone was horrifying. I'll have at least one a year i cant get both. Calf gets bigger and they dont get docked much for being a bull, he makes it up in size... So this makes me wonder how people are banding and leaving one and they arent falling out when the band is gone? I never liked ralgro, we used it when we cut calves when they were small to make up for lost growth from castration.. We havent used it for well over 15 years. I'm not trusting of the artificial hormones, figure natural is better. And, we eat what we grow, dont want it anywhere near anything we eat. I dont even want to handle it.

Wern't you the one earlier that criticized someone else about their lack of knowledge ;-)

Edit
Yep it was you and all I can say is wow I don't know where to start on that :help:

What kind of cattlemen have you been around. Geeze. We band at around 500 pounds, this is way before weaning so they are steers when they hit the sale barn. No way no how is anyone going to know how that calf was cut, now way in heck they will dock a calf no matter how he was cut.
While the guys worm and vaccinate, i'm doing my job and are usually done before they are. I have absolutely no problems with our calves kicking, thats the beauty of the squeeze..Catch their heads, squeeze. Usually the testicles pop out behind them, 1 in about 20 will need resqueezed to get them where i can get to them. Would have to do that no matter if i were cutting or banding.
I've cut both ways, do not need anyone to instruct me how to do it. lol
Anyone who argues that head to head a calf castrated at 2 days is going to grow as big as a bull calf to 5 months. You sure havent been around enough cattle to know bulls get hormones and muscle up better than a calf who has had it taken away at birth. Sorry, thought you guys knew your cattle better... :? Cutting them out started many years ago when cowboys didnt want to wrestle a big calf, you can get hurt. SO, they did it to baby calves they could handle.

 

[ga.prime]

Well, that's not exactly true....... But not worth arguing with you about it. You have YOUR opinions, and you don't really sound like the kind of guy that is open to someone elses.

We're talking about realities, not opinion.

 

[Andyva]

I've been doing it for about 28 years. Calving out 50 or 60 a year for all of that time. Some of that time I calved close to 200. During a short period of calving out that many that I owned or managed, I took over the banding/cutting and tagging for a neighbor that hurt himself and did about another 50, and did another herd of thirty for an old widow woman, all as bigger calves for her though. So I've done a couple. Biggest calf I've ever done was about 650 pounds . Used a knife, no head chute. He was fine. Most were done as day old. Most of mine, I used a knife, but I've banded for other people. I've seen two calves that had undescended testicles after day four. Both of them, on two different farms had charlaois and limousin at the same time. I've seen one get an infection after cutting with a knife. I've seen four get infections after banding. One of those died. Before my time, my dad had a calf die after cutting, but he was dehorned too, and he was a big calf. I have seen stags walking around where the people should have known what they were doing. I've yet to see a stag that was cut.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Well, that's not exactly true....... But not worth arguing with you about it. You have YOUR opinions, and you don't really sound like the kind of guy that is open to someone elses.

We're talking about realities, not opinion.

Not everyone's "reality" is the same obviously. ;-)

 

[coxy]

When I used to work at a 5000 head feedlot a cattle buyer would buy young 1200lb plus bulls and bring them to us to cut so he could sell them at a later date. First things first got the creoline solution ready to go and I'd dip my hands in and clean the bulls sack with it too, now with my scalpel I would cut the bottom of the sac (skin only) grab the testicles and carefully cut the membrane that's wrapped around nuts and put the scalpel away. Grab one nut with one hand pull down and keep it tight, with other hand grab the cord and pinch it with ur thumbnail and hand, now run it up and down fairly fast keeping that testicle pulled down the cord disintegrates and actually cottorizes. Very minimal bleeding like I mean drop drop and that's about it. I've had the vet out years before to do 800 lbers and used an emasculator and they bled so bad I had to put a couple back in the shute and used twine to tie the sac really tight to stop the bleeding. Another way instead of ur fingernail is using the scalpel and scrape the cord up and down till the nut is pulled off and works ok too and now I'm not sure if I had a point to my long story but if the flies are out I spray the bulls with ectaban solution to keep flies away. I mostly put a green cheerio on my January February calves in April or may depending how wet the spring is which I'm not sure if spring is coming lol -21 degrees Celsius into next week as a low and that's not funny

 

[cowgirl8]

There have been times when i cant get one of the nuts down. When this happens he's left a bull. I will not leave one out. I did that when we first started banding and seeing that testicle fall out after the band is gone was horrifying. I'll have at least one a year i cant get both. Calf gets bigger and they dont get docked much for being a bull, he makes it up in size... So this makes me wonder how people are banding and leaving one and they arent falling out when the band is gone? I never liked ralgro, we used it when we cut calves when they were small to make up for lost growth from castration.. We havent used it for well over 15 years. I'm not trusting of the artificial hormones, figure natural is better. And, we eat what we grow, dont want it anywhere near anything we eat. I dont even want to handle it.

Wern't you the one earlier that criticized someone else about their lack of knowledge ;-)

Edit
Yep it was you and all I can say is wow I don't know where to start on that :help:

What kind of cattlemen have you been around. Geeze. We band at around 500 pounds, this is way before weaning so they are steers when they hit the sale barn. No way no how is anyone going to know how that calf was cut, now way in heck they will dock a calf no matter how he was cut.
While the guys worm and vaccinate, i'm doing my job and are usually done before they are. I have absolutely no problems with our calves kicking, thats the beauty of the squeeze..Catch their heads, squeeze. Usually the testicles pop out behind them, 1 in about 20 will need resqueezed to get them where i can get to them. Would have to do that no matter if i were cutting or banding.
I've cut both ways, do not need anyone to instruct me how to do it. lol
Anyone who argues that head to head a calf castrated at 2 days is going to grow as big as a bull calf to 5 months. You sure havent been around enough cattle to know bulls get hormones and muscle up better than a calf who has had it taken away at birth. Sorry, thought you guys knew your cattle better... :? Cutting them out started many years ago when cowboys didnt want to wrestle a big calf, you can get hurt. SO, they did it to baby calves they could handle.

So i guess you'll have to point out what your saying.
If the one calf i left a testicle in fell out once the band and scrotum fell off, what is wrong for me to expect that not to happen to other calves who've had one left in? Maybe since we do it to a much larger calf, it would more likey happen. But since many do it to small babies, it might not happen. Makes sense to me. Maybe i'm just naive to bad cattle practices?

 

[Newberry Creek]

Must make a difference to the buyers around here. When a good group goes thru the sale ring, the auctioneer says "knife cut". Why would he say that ? Never heard him say "banded".

 

[cowgirl8]

Is he saying it to describe it to be a steer, may be his silly use of a word you've misinterpreted? I'll have to pay better attention at the sale. Have to admit most of what i hear is Blibbly blobbly yeggidy yaggidy...lol...When we cut calves way back in the day, i was always told to cut off the bottom of the scrotum so that if anything were to ooze it would ooze out. As it healed and the calf grew, that remaining scrotum would be pulled up and gone. I have not been able to tell the difference between the two months later. But, i will be paying more attention any time i go to the sale barn. And if you are making a vertical slit in the scrotum to get out the nut, you're risking infection. This is what i was taught. Our steers at the time of sale will have a fat bubble around where they use to jewels, just the same as a cut calf.
Also might add that at the sale barn our calves always are on the high end of the numbers paid..guarantee if we were being docked, husband would see it and we'd be cutting instead.

 

[TexasBred]

Anyone who argues that head to head a calf castrated at 2 days is going to grow as big as a bull calf to 5 months. You sure havent been around enough cattle to know bulls get hormones and muscle up better than a calf who has had it taken away at birth. Sorry, thought you guys knew your cattle better... :? Cutting them out started many years ago when cowboys didnt want to wrestle a big calf, you can get hurt. SO, they did it to baby calves they could handle.

Research shows that calves steered at any age grow just as fast as bulls calves. Study up !!

If that is true, why do people replace the hormones?

The discussion was cutting at very young age -vs- your method of doing it at 500 lbs. Actually you're castrating or banding just about the time the calf begins to develop some level of testerone so you're getting very little benefit from leaving the calf intact to that point. Also even when implants are used on larger "steers" containing testerone the levels of "t" utilized by the calf over the effective time of the implant is much less than would be produced in an intact bull.

 

[TexasBred]

Good question! I was wondering that myself........ :???:
I might add, everyone I know wants a "hormone free" piece of meat.

Must be a California thing. Most people simply want something to eat and hopefully it is beef. Hormones and origin are the least of their worries.