Castrating steers and Bull Premium

[Peter thornton]

I am filling in my forms for my last beef premiums on male cattle. I have 3 bull calves born June and early July. These are still entire and I intended to have the vet castrate them sometime soon.

However I notice that the bull premium is 60 euros more than the 1st steer premium. Presumably, if I claim the bull premium I have to leave them entire for the retention period? (Whether or not an unusually dedicated DEFRA opfficial would come to my little farm with the express purpose of checking for the existence of my animals testicles is a whole new ball game, as they say)

My question is: Would it cause more stress for the animals to castrate them at 9 months rather than at 5 months?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Bearing in mind that any calf over two months old in the UK can only legally be castrated by a vet using an aneasthetic, I don 't have any problem with castrating older ones provided the handling facilities are up to it and the assistance is competent. I regularly castrate calves over 9 months old, many limousin cross suckled calves and they cdertainly need someone cpable of handling them, and a good crush. There is no doubt that if there is any bleeding then the bigger the animal the more risk there is that it will be serious, but that should be a very rare occurrence.

Duncan