Castrate My Bull or Leave Him In-Tact

[TexFarmer]

I'm running about 30 head of cattle and have had a few bulls born this winter/spring that I have castrated via band however I have this one little bull that was born on March 8, 2017 (2 months old) that I really like the way he looks. His mother is a pretty good looking red angus (kept her weight on after calving as you can see below) and his father is a solid black angus bull. I'm pretty new to cattle and was wondering what determining factors should I be looking at when deciding which bulls to castrate and which ones I might consider leaving in-tact? I'm in NE Texas and black angus cattle are predominate around here, would I have any luck raising this little guy as a bull with him being a deep solid red angus? If I decide to leave him as a bull, how is the best way to market him, sale barn, craigslist, some other means?

Here he is standing out beside his mama this afternoon.

 

[M-5]

Good looking calf but a whole lot of sheath. Dam has some Brahma in the wood pile somewhere

 

[Bigfoot]

Nice little calf. Something in the woodpile beyond what you have listed. Honestly, there won't be many people in the market for a little bull like that. I'd probably cut it, and hope that cow has heifers from now on.

 

[M-5]

What happened to the OP

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

This conversation makes no sense.

 

[TexFarmer]

What happened to the OP

I had a typo in the subject line, edited it, and I guess the edit requires approvals. Sorry about that.

 

[Bigfoot]

Never seen that before, he just disappeared.

 

[Cross-7]

Based on what I see I'd leave him and see how he grows out.
Aint but a couple hundred dollars between steers and bulls

 

[ez14.]

This conversation makes no sense.

I'm with you on this one :???:

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

This conversation makes no sense.

I'm with you on this one :???:

Now that the original post is back up it makes sense. Nice calf, great looking momma, daddy must carry the red gene.

Verdict: sharpen the knife.

 

[greatgerts]

Ok. Here is my :2cents:. I have started to go by this mantra: if you have to question whether to castrate or not, you better go ahead and make him a steer. If not, you'll put 15 months into him just for him to sell at the sale barn. There are a ton of good bulls out there, and it's hard enough for some guys that have been doing it for years to move all of their bulls to keep around the "maybes".
Out of the last 3 calf crops, we only kept 1 a bull. Sucker weighed 1045 at 10 months old out of a 2 year old cow.

Moral to the story, keep the knife sharp!

 

[Rafter S]

As others have said, that calf is not Red Angus crossed with Black Angus. He's showing way too much Brahman influence. Brangus on both sides, maybe. Can you post a picture of the sire?

And I'd cut him. I don't mean this to be mean at all, merely helpful, but someone just starting in the cattle business has very little chance of judging which calves will make good bulls. Even if you'd been doing it a long time I'd still say cut him.

 

[LLBUX]

Nice calf, but I see no market for him as a bull.
I agree with others that he has too much Brahman influence to be represented as a Red Angus x Angus.

Cut him unless you have a bull buyer in the next month or two for a Brahman influenced crossbred bull.

 

[Brute 23]

If you have the extra traps and are just bored you can raise him and see what happens. I have seen people buy a lot worse.

Definitely market him as a Brangus Type bull. His mom look like a red brangus and a pic of the sire would be good.

Your not going to get rich doing it though. You will have to hold him a long time to make a couple bucks. The market that is going to buy that bull is not going to pay much.

Worse case scenario raise him up and if you can sell him whole... sell him in quarters. He would make a good butcher bull in a year or so. ;-)

 

[ez14.]

That's a really nice looking calf! But he has got to much skin to be straight Angus. And if you don't know what else is in the wood pile I don't think it would be a good idea to leave him a bull :2cents:

Though if you're set up to handle him and just wanted to see what he does there's nothing wrong with that

 

[TexFarmer]

I really do appreciate everyone's feedback. I'll be castrating this little bull per everyone's recommendations. As requested here's a picture of the sire. Would you say the Brahman/Brangus that everyone mentions is in my bull? He definitely carries the red gene, majority of his calves are solid red/tan with some having white spots.

 

[M-5]

Yep ,looks alot like brangus to me

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

By the way, I really like the looks of your other cows and calves.

 

[ez14.]

how did you acquire your herd?

 

[TexFarmer]

how did you acquire your herd?

I inherited some land that I needed to run cattle on to keep an ag exemption going around the same time my dad was getting out of farming so I bought his herd from him at a decent price. My dad didn't keep records of anything and I wasn't involved with his farm so I'm not sure what all I've got at this point. Most of the bloodline except for the sire comes from my late grandfather's herd who got out of farming in the 90s.