Castrating male calves

[Justin]

Feedlot guys want knife cut calves due to the fact too many guys miss nuts with the bands. Some actually tuck a nut or two up then put the band on the sack to make it look like a steer. My neighbours that have feedlots refer to that as a "saskatchewan ralgro". It is very costly in both time and weight/death loss to dig out those testicles missed by the banders. The calicrate tool works excellant if the scrotum is still intact but those bands are over $4 a piece at our local co-op.

we use the callicrate bander and it works really well. the bands are around $2.50 or they were in this area. banding is probably more expensive and time consuming than using a knife at branding time, but i feel the extra pounds the bull calves put on more than pay for it. plus like i said in an earlier post, i like to keep bulls back, so this way i can watch them over the summer before i decide who they will be. as far as not getting both nuts in the band, that is just operator error and shouldn't happen. i'm not saying i'll never go back to the knife, but for now i'm happy with the bander.

 

[elwapo]

Justin
do you sell your calves in fall? If so do the buyers dock them for looking staggy?
I used the callicrate bander on some bulls this fall and I am very happy. The calves went right back on feed and never missed a beat, that in itself is probably worth more than the $4 bands.

 

[Northern Rancher]

When I was videoing cattle for Superior we went to take delivery of a set of steer calves in northern Manitoba-when I sorted them off the heifers something looked fishy. We ended up running them all through the chute-he'd done such a crappy job of banding that I think we took out 50 plus calves with belly nuts-he said it didn't think it would matter. Calves were pretty steamt that fall so he got an expensive lesson. When we'd videoed the calves weren't really old enough to look staggy yet. I think anybody who buys many calves would like to band some of the ranchers who don't learn how to use them right. We used to band calves when we pen calved but just use a knife at branding now-not brave enough to cut an EXT's calf at birth but the video footage would be great. I've done lots of bigger bulls over the years with the callicrate deal and had good luck-we gave them a tetanus shot when we did it though. One of the funiet stories I heard was a friend was banding a bull with the whole deal hung over his neck-the tubing bag etc. His hired man cracked the headgate before he cut the tubing so he got drug through the chute attached to the bulls nuts-then the tubing broke and the bander smacked him in the mouth. All methods work well if done RIGHT!!!

 

[Justin]

Justin
do you sell your calves in fall? If so do the buyers dock them for looking staggy?
I used the callicrate bander on some bulls this fall and I am very happy. The calves went right back on feed and never missed a beat, that in itself is probably worth more than the $4 bands.

normally we ship our steers mid to late November after they are weaned for 30-45 days, but it varies year to year. and i don't think my steers get the staggy look, maybe a few, but very few. but maybe if someone else looked at them they would say different? most years they have been sold privately and have never had any complaints about them looking staggy.