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WY, OK | Not a surprise, we castrated at precon two years in a row and it was obvious the bulls lost weight for a few weeks then were slow to recover, we also had a death loss not seen with castrating earlier at branding or even at birth. Decided after the second year it wasn't worth the extra weight they put on to leave them bulls that long and do it at branding, get some gain over banding at birth and no real noticeable side effects of the castration at a 1-2month age. I think the only question is to castrate or not, either do it before 2-3 months of age or sell them as bulls and take a few cent hit which might be better since they will weigh more than a steer. The few bulls we have kept have been over 700lbs at weaning and the bigger steers would come in 30-50 lbs lighter. What might work really well is castrating your older half of the herd and leaving the younger half as bulls so they can make up some of the weight for being born 30-45 days later than the first calves. | |
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Very interesting article on bull vs steer calf performance
