• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Casteration Method and Age

We knife cut everything at branding but we have used the big bands on yearlings before-it works pretty good. Lots of horror stories out there with those litte bands-I saw one guy lose about 5,000 on his calves by shoving the nuts up. If you use them right they work fine.
 
I ring my bull calves when they are 2-5 days old. It works the best for our operation. You have to be carefull and make sure you get both nuts is all. On some calves, if you just wait a few more days they(the nuts) have descended a little more and it is easier to get ahold on them.
Them little green rings are also pretty fun to put into a box of "Fruit Loops" cereal. It makes breakfast time "fun time"!!! :D :wink:
 
TimH said:
I ring my bull calves when they are 2-5 days old. It works the best for our operation. You have to be carefull and make sure you get both nuts is all. On some calves, if you just wait a few more days they(the nuts) have descended a little more and it is easier to get ahold on them.
Them little green rings are also pretty fun to put into a box of "Fruit Loops" cereal. It makes breakfast time "fun time"!!! :D :wink:
Click to expand...
We band ours too with no problam...thanks for the fruit loop tip,April 1st coming up real soon! :shock:
 
We're yet another who does a knife at branding time. Slit or capped is entirely up to whomever is doing the cutting that year.
Last year we had one of each. And the two guys doing the cutting actually got into an argument over the merits of one over the other. It was fascinating... :lol:
 
We to band them when we tag. Just set them up on their hindy with their neck between your legs and count to two. For those who push them up will soon find out they will run out of buyers.
 
We have banded at birth for about 25 years, only problem that I have ever seen was with two guys I had working for me that put the bands as high up the scrotum as they could. When the scrotum dried up and fell off, it left an open sore. My fault, didn't show them to pull the band down after putting it on. We also went into a program that was feeding bulls for the lean meat market, by the time the calves were weaned the program was history so we had to band 200 head of 6 weight bulls. Not only did it take all day to do, they actually lost weight for about 2 weeks so any gain was lost and they did not grade worth beans, money losing deal, even the feedlot manager said to get them all banded as soon as possible s there is UNebraska studies that show less stress, and no difference in weights compared to other methods. My only problem is a weakness for Morel mushrooms and RMt oysters deep fried to perfection, so I have to go to Fourth Avenue meats to feed my craving.

This reminds me of a story, worthy of Ranchers.net. Montana State University used to be pretty involved with the prison farm at Deer Lodge. This was about 20 years ago, MSU hired a new reproductive physiologist, he just graduated from West Virginia. To get him acclimated to Montana and the way ranchers do things, they sent him to a branding at the prison. He was not capable of roping, branding or any of those type things so he was asked what he could do. Well, he could castrate with the best of them so that was to be his job. First bull calf come in on the end of the rope and he went running over to it with his disenfectant, a scalpel and a sterile surgical drape to put over the area on the patient. Took him about half an hour to cut the first calf. The prisoners were not impressed, they found a knife and proceeded to do it the cowboy way, this professor was never sent to a branding again. Had the privilage of being his TA in preg test class, we made sure he was never around until we had the cows in the stocks cause he is one of those people that animals just don't like :wink:

Another story for this topic, you men take a deep breath, this hurts, we had an exchange student from Tailand when I was in high school. Took him to a branding and the calves were being knife cut and the prizes kept in a bucket. He thought this was somewhat mean. He said because of the warm climate and the flies from where he was they use the two rock method. What is that we ask? He said we have a flat rock we put under the testes and a round rock that we use to smash them with, making them useless but no open wound for the flies to get into. Aren't you glad they didn't use that on you jigs? :lol2:
 
my neighbor went in to get his done, and his wife was employed at the clinic.....the doc walks into the room with a tray covered by a towel. whips off the towel to reveal a bottle of wine, and two bricks!
 
We band at the branding & I'm always stuck with that job. It just make more work for us to band before the branding. We calve out on the winter range with sage brush taller than the cows & as soon as the cows see horse & rider they take off. One could say they are a little wild only being handled three or four times a year... :)

Paul
 
Paul said:
We band at the branding & I'm always stuck with that job. It just make more work for us to band before the branding. We calve out on the winter range with sage brush taller than the cows & as soon as the cows see horse & rider they take off. One could say they are a little wild only being handled three or four times a year... :)

Paul
Click to expand...

Don't you just hate them ol' pet cows you got to look at more than twice a year? :wink:
 
You can add me to the knife at branding list.
A question; who prefers between the nuts to slit the bag, or do some cut "across the grain"?
I agree with Denny's point about stretching the cords 'til they break, in my experience they don't bleed.
I personally have had trouble with only one calf bleeding and he had the end of the bag cut off, and the cords cut. Also the moon must have been wrong because almost every other new steer swelled and limped for a week that year.
I'll bet almost everybody here knows that guy who brings 10 or 12 oysters to the can at a time, and spends 15 seconds per steer. Those calves seem to never have problems.
 
We cut with a knife at branding like Soapweed said, no matter how big they are. I'm not a big fan of banding, alot of folks do it. My reason is this ,just one persons mistake. And everyone that does should know to do it right, but one time we got a load of wheat pasture calves that had been banded. Few of the calves were not done right and had to dig thru alot of scar tissue to get to the nut.
 
Last year we had a calf that was born with one very large nut and another little undevolped nut.I had taken this calf to the vet and cut him there incase he had a rupture.

I normally do all the cutting at my brandings.But I got a chance to rope the last group of calves.I forgot all about that steer till the guy doing the cutting can't find any nuts oop's.Poor little fella got cut twice now thats making sure he's a steer.
 
We cut at working time, 2 to 3 months. We also implant with Ralgro at this time and again at weaning.

Tried banding at birth but seemed to give up some growth, but we didn't implant at that time.

Cut a few late calvers at weaning last year and set them back real hard. Any missed this year will get banded at weaning.

For those of ya'll banding do you give a tetnus shot?

Johnny
 
Nope, no tetanus shot. The only shot our calves get from birth til preconditioning in the fall is Vision 7; 7-way. Works for us; no problems. We were giving Virashield 6 at branding but a vet said the calves were too
young to utilize vaccines at that young age due to their immune system fighting it; so we quit. We wasted money for a long time because it hasn't made any difference~no sickness in the calves either way.
 
I normally band anything that would not be a candidate for a bull at birth. I will keep the pure bred ( out of AI) bulls and evaluate later at weaning. I use the knife on the ones that don't make the grade at that time. Cut the bottom off and pull to break the cord. Then you bread the oysters like a tenderloin and have a great food for a couple of months.
 
I casterate my calves at spring branding apox. 60 days age

I cut mine with a knife always have always will :wink: Split or cut off the bottom of the bag (I leave that up to the experianced hands I pick to do it) and pull as you cut the cords so it sort of tears as it cuts never cut straight though cords :!: Never lose a spring calf this way but have lost a few fall calves from bleeding when cut in midwinter Feb/Mar. The moon phase sign makes alot of differance on bigger calves at that age with bleeding.

We always save the oysters but I'll sure let the crew cook as many on the stove as they want. Need something to go with the beer during beer breaks :D I've stood at the sink cleaning mountain oysters (removing cord skin part) for hours it gets old fast. You can have hundereds in a cooler and after cleaning they fit in a gallon zip lock bag. Its always worth it though, I just bread them in flour use a bunch of season salt and fry them in vegetable oil. They don't last long for this family of six.
 
As much as I enjoy the oysters, cutting calves at birth pretty much elominates them from the menu. The dog gets fat though, he sees the knife come out and he'll practically pull the nut out himself. Hardly an oyster hits the ground around here. :-)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top