Calf Testicles not decending

Help Support CattleToday:

chippie":2190w6re said:
Wethers (goats) have problems when banded young and the urethra stays small. Certain grain mixes will cause the urinary calculi (stones). Horse feed is among the worst. The urethra is too small for the crystals or stones to pass. Been there, done that. Learned the lesson.

Why the big rush to band the calf? I think that I would have waited until the testes were fully down and so that you don't have to fight to get the testes.

Farmers I get advice from including the instructions with the bander, recommend banding as soon as possible. Most people make that recommendation because they are not as physically developed so they are easier to handle. The banding instructions imply that it is harder on them when the scrotum and testicles develop.

I am skeptical that banding even day old calves has a risk of causing harm and continue to solicit an explaination in veterinarian medicine terms why banding at an early age will harm a calf.
 
Hmm. Wrote a lengthy reply, but don't know where it went. Here goes.

Of the hundreds of thousands(millions?) of calves castrated at an early age, I'd hazard guess that only a tiny fraction of a percentage of them ever have a problem. IMO, it's never been a significant consideration. Yes, early castration may predispose to development of urolithiasis and urethral obstruction in feeder steers that are on a misformulated ration with Ca:p ratio closer to 1:1 rather than the desired 2:1; excessive P predisposes to formation of urinary calculi - which are usually kind of like gritty sand to thick toothpaste-consistency material. Rarely have I seen any that were as large as a BB or English pea - but sometimes there may be a double-handful of grit/sludge in the bladder. You'd be surprised at how effectively just a little bit of 'sand' can plug the urethra, though.
In my experience, the vast majority of cases are in steers on a high-grain ration.

I'm not sure anyone has done extensive measurement of urethral diameter in early-castrated steers vs those done at an older age, but I don't necessarily doubt that the early-castrated calves have smaller urethral diameter. One study I recall seeing suggested that bulls and partial- or late-castrated steers were able to expel larger calculi just because they had better urethral muscle development, rather than just a larger urethral diameter.

I have seen an occasional bull/steer calf, on pasture on the dam, develop urethral obstruction and waterbelly - and saw it once in a big, mature ChiAngus bull; I have to think that those cases may have involved silica uroliths rather than the struvite types associated with Ca:p imbalance.

Saw a case presentation once, where a snake-oil salesman convinced a feedlot operator to incorporate diatomaceous earth into a feeder ration as a 'natural dewomer' (it's NOT - DE has never killed a worm in an animal. EVER.). They didn't account for mineral content of the DE, and precipitated a big outbreak of urolithiasis, losing a number of steers. Can't recall, at this point, if they were silica or struvite uroliths, but I'd suspect struvite, unless the P content of the DE also skewed the Ca:p ratio out of whack.

Wethers usually block, initially, in the little worm-like urethral process at the tip end of the penis; often if you just snip that off, you remove the obstruction and set them right - but if they're early-castrates, you may not be able to extend/exteriorize the penis to get at it.



Had one calf in this fall's crop that I could only find one testicle on - poked, prodded, palpated - just could not find #2. Don't remember which calf it was, but I've been looking at scrotums, and none of 'em show any evidence of one having come down in the 2-3 months since; guess eventually, one will start to look more bullish than his cohorts.
 
In farmer speak "as soon as possible" means when the calf is ready.
Some consider 7 days to several weeks early enough. We have banded calves at 4 months. Throw it down. Sit on it. Pull the back leg up & hold it with your leg. band it & let it up. The calf does a little dance & runs to it's mother.
It all boils down to using your common sense.
 
Thanks Lucky_P. Seems like everyone is advocating some use for DE these days. In fact, someone told my brother to use it to worm his coon hounds. Good Lord, I said, worm medicine for dogs is pretty cheap unless your talking about treatment for heartworm.

Anyway, you really put a lot into that answer, I appreciate that effort. I take from it I am assuming little risk when banding baby calves.

chippie, no thanks on throwing down 4 month old calves and banding them. I do my cattle thing alone unless I get into trouble and have to call in the calvary. I would rather do it when they are small and easier to handle. That's my way of applying common sense.
 
I didn't say that you had to wait until 4 months old. Good grief. What I was trying say is that you could have waited a week or so to see if the testes dropped further. That is my common sense. I will say that I hope that you got everything like the epididymis, especially since you had to fight to pull them down far enough.

However they are your cattle, your nickel and your life.
 
First, Dun, YUCK! Polishing a stone???
We raised a steer a few years back that got a pretty bad case of urinary calculi. When he was around 900 pounds, we saw a white substance around the tip of his sheath. We then started noticing that he was urinating in small amounts. Finally, we took him to the vet because he was off his feed, would stretch out often while standing, and dribbled urine often. Vet did a rectal, and found his bladder was overly full, size of a football if I remember correctly. We had to drastically modify his diet just to get him to an acceptable butcher weight, forget the fact that he would never be able to be shown (my daughter was hoping to take him to the simmental nationals). It was real hard on all of us, since I did not want him to drop dead from a bladder that ruptured, but wanted to get him to a decent weight for butchering! Never seen a case like that before, and have not seen one since! But, definitely diet related. When ever we tried to increase his grain, he would relapse and start the issues with urinating. Just hay, he was fine...
 
chippie":2a86ur3w said:
I didn't say that you had to wait until 4 months old. Good grief. What I was trying say is that you could have waited a week or so to see if the testes dropped further. That is my common sense. I will say that I hope that you got everything like the epididymis, especially since you had to fight to pull them down far enough.

However they are your cattle, your nickel and your life.

Sorry, I did not mean to say that you were saying I should wait to 4 months. I think you were clear and I knew what you meant. I have banded all my calves in the first or second day. Not just because they are easier to handle but because I had understood and still do that it is easier on them. I have only been at this 3 years so am still on the steep end of the learning curve. I like to have fun at everything so don't think I am serious about everything I put up on this board. I am honest and not funning when I say, I appreciate your comments. I like almost everyone I have ever met. To a fault sometimes. A friend came over to use my welder at the shop on the farm. I said yes. Went to do some things and left him alone. He not only used my welder, but he used my rods and even my helmet. At the same time he helped him self to my beer that I keep in the little refrigerator for vaccine. I was a little surprised that he took such liberty but I didn't get mad. The same guy came by one day while I was mowing pasture and took my utility vehicle for a ride over the farm. Now that caused me to have a couple words with him. He replied that he didn't think I would care because I am so easy going.

PS. I came back to add this post script. I even like Red Bull Breeder. I want him to know I was pulling his leg on that thread whichever one it was. How could anyone get mad at another person over what is said on a forum board when you have no idea who you are talking to. The is not much accountability that I can see. I learn from these boards but they are mainly entertainment.

PS2. Now I am creating my profile. For a little humor, my mom and dad are both 90 and went into a nursing home together in the past year. I have lived away from them for 33 years, but I talked to them on the phone almost every day for the last 20 years. I can talk to my mom for hours and I don't talk that much! Why? because we have fun. I just talked to her this morning. I started out by asking her what was going on in the funeral home. Did you get that? That is how we carry on for hours. She is 90 and can still laugh. I hope we all do so well!!!
 
When my vet was dealing with my calf he explained that what they do with these, if caught in time, is reroute the urethra so that the steer calf urinates from under his tail, like a heifer. But with mine the calf had already ruptured.

The behavior in mine the day before was very similar to what FSR was seeing. For those of you who wonder how to identify it in the future, my steer was pushing like he had to poop, standing stretched out and had prolapsed rectally. I had the vet out and the vet felt the calf was obstructed, gave him and enema, and took care of the rectal prolapse. The next day I called the vet and described new developments. Vet came back out, diagnosed water belly, explained my options, and suggested euthanasia.

Vet said it is very uncommon, and I did not change my protocol based on this experience.
 
Oops. Noticed a mistake in my previous post. The DE-precipitated outbreak of urolithiasis was probably silicate stones, not struvite - unless it also skewed Ca:p. Diatom exoskeletons are composed of silica.

inyati, the only issue I have with banding, at any age, is the potential for tetanus. I've seen it in baby calves banded at birth and in big 4-7cwt bulls done with the Callicrate or California-type banders. Granted, the number of tetanus cases that occur, compared to the number that are banded is pretty small, but it is a consideration.
But by the same token, the only case of tetanus that I've had in one of my own animals was in a 400-lb calf that I knife-cut, so it's not necessarily just a problem with banding.
 
I was told by my vet. When a calf or a goat is castorated very young that the uretha does not develops fully. ]When the animal is feed a high mineral feed the uretha becomes clogged and the animal can not urinate. The animal. Is usually slaughtered. As soon as possible to save the
meat. Some feed lot people could confirm this.
 

Latest posts

Top