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Western Nebraska | We have done 500+ lb calves before, but I hate banding that size. I have never felt so cruel in all of my life as the day I finished banding a pen of bulls and walked out to look at them. The entire pen was pacing and laying down and standing up and kicking, etc.... It was awful, then the sacks swell up and turn black. Eventually they will fall off, but it is an ugly slow process. If you are going to band them, the younger the better. If you are worried about stress on the animal, I would view any study with lots of skepticism that says that late banding is easiest on the calf. I know our calves would go off feed for a day or two until things went completely numb. If my choices were emasculator or knife, I would choose emasculator. If my choices were knife or band I would choose knife for the 500lb calf.
We went back to banding everything at birth. They don't even seem to know they have been castrated. They also are cleaned up by the time you bring them in to sell. | |
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Banding vs castration
