Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

We were asking ourselfes why in the UK bulls are castrated and slaughtered at 28 months in stead of leaving them bulls and slaughter them a year earlier????

IMO
steer 28 month: about 140 kg sellable meat.
bull 16 months: about 100 kg sellable meat.
You have to castrate and feed the animal 1 year for 40 kg more meat.

For most people the inconvenience of keeping bulls and heifers/cows separate is not worth keeping bulls entire, however leaving bulls entire is probably more common than you think among UK Dexter breeders - there was certainly no shortage of bulls at the last York sale.

That said, I have a DCS bulletin somewhere in the archive, late nineties I think, with comments from the then president that bull beef was dangerous and risked ruining the reputation of Dexter beef, or something like that.

I have had some very good feedback from customers who have had bull beef - slaughtered before 20 months. I certainly cannot detect any difference in taste or texture but then our animals only travel six miles and bulls are killed on arrival.