To castrate or not

[BrassMonkey]

I've read previous posts on castration but just wondered if anyone has any suggestions as I'm new to the dexter game! I've got two non short dexters that have both given birth to bull calves, my intention is to rear them for meat on my small acreage.
My vet advised not to use castration rings as he had encountered problems in the past and suggested the open knife method at 3 - 4 months but do I need to do it at all ? Both dams have horns but the bull was polled and I think the vet was advising me from a handling point of view. Will two bull calves be aggressive towards each other later on or will they be in the freezer before that happens ? Does bull beef really taste different?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

You will avoid a lot of potential problems if you have them castrated. The ring must be used in the first week, so if older than that then that is no longer an option. That leaves knife or burdizzo. The burdizzo is a tight clamp like a heavy set of pliers which compresses the cord within the scrotum so tight that the cord and its blood vessels are clamped of. The instrument should cut a piece of string between two sheets of paper. But it leaves a testicle in there to be resorbed, ok if you are keeping yourself but can cause doubts if you are selling them and the buyer thinks the job has not been done right. And sometimes it is not done right. I avoid it if at all possible and would agree with your vet that the knife is the way. Remember that over two months of age only a vet can castrate calves, though if you are beginners I would advise using the vet or getting training.

As I am a vet I don't need to worry about the 2 month rule, of course I have to use anaesthetic as per the law. I do use a knife and do them open, sometimes wait year till I really know if they are going to make it as a breeding bull, but not everyone wants to wait that long.

If you don't have them done they will be looking for females to mate, including heifer calves of their own age and their mothers if not already in calf. If you run a bull with older bull calves you can have problems with damage to the challenging youngster from the older bull, they will jump fences, etc etc. I have killed and eaten two bulls but it is much more difficult to get good fat cover on the carcase.

Duncan

[Broomcroft]

Leave them as bulls and that will give you loads of problems. We get all ours vet castrated because it doesn't cost a lot and you know it's been done properly. We used to ring ours, but left one as a rig once and he also caused loads of problems! Best rule on a farm is one bull only, then it's fairly simples.

And IMO steer beef is the best. Bull beef CAN be dodgy if left too long. A lot of places will only take bulls up to 16 months for good reason. Steers best left till 24+ months for good flavour I'd say.

[Saffy]

I completely agree with what Duncan and Clive have said, my dexters are always castrated by a vet unless they are to be kept as a bull. I have no experience of problems with a bunch of dexter bulls or rigs but years ago I had a dairy herd and someone came to castrate the bulls calves, a big bunch and didn't do them all properly, they ended up breaking out to a bunch of heifers and it wasn't pretty, one got quite nasty when we tried to take him back.

Stephanie

[BrassMonkey]

Many thanks to all that's cleared my head - good to know I can ask.
Steve

[ayrt1010]

As my husband has bull beef on our farm, as an experiment(so he says) we (he!) is going to leave my bull calf to see what he turns out like and what he will be like at 16 months as that is when his other bulls go. So we shall wait and see.

[Broomcroft]

Slightly off-subject, but I just culled a 5 year old, small, non-short bull today. He graded R3 which is good and 340kg deadweight. Bulls do carry so much weight.