Why? Cattle buyers and feedlot owners know delaying castration of bulls until they’re ready for the feedlot is likely to result in reduced average daily gain (ADG), greater susceptibility to diseases such as bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and the potential for requiring extra days on feed. That all adds up to significantly increased cost of gain (COG).
And those aren’t just projections. Beef cattle nutrition and management extension specialist at Kansas State University, Dale Blasi, worked with a team of researchers from March 2006 through March 2008 to document measurable differences between the performance of early castrated bull calves and late-castrated bull calves.
In this report, Blasi says beef producers can “maintain a greater level of profitability or recognize opportunities to make more profit when excessive discounts (like this) are being applied.”
“Our study results confirmed that late-castrated bulls diminished performance and increased morbidity probabilities in relation to early castrated bulls,” Blasi says.
The reason behind the discount
One reason some beef producers may struggle with implementing early castration is the fact that bull calves typically wean at higher weights and bulls have been found to be more feed efficient.
“That’s not necessarily true for late-castrated steers, particularly those weighing over 400 pounds,” Blasi says. “Fat deposition (which contributes to marbling, tenderness and flavor) is also slower in bulls.”
In addition to these negatives, bulls are much more aggressive in a feedlot setting, leading to many undesirable consequences, including significant risks to feedlot staff and damage to facilities.
“Think about it. Would you want to try feeding 100 bulls in a pen?” Clyde Lane Jr., professor emeritus, University of Tennessee says. “That many bulls would fight all the time. Their behavior would detract from daily gain, likely causing bruising and broken bones. The high-risk behavior significantly increases the cost of production.”
Lane, 2014 winner of the Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) National Educator Award, was instrumental in developing his state’s BQA certification program in 2000. He recently retired from the UT Department of Animal Science after spending nearly 40 years there as an extension beef specialist.
“I’ve always advocated castrating bull calves within a few days of birth and implanting them to achieve desirable weaning weights,” Lane says. “The longer you wait to castrate, the more stress on the animal and the higher the risk of injury for everyone involved.”
Castrating older calves may also require use of an emasculator to successfully complete castration and reduce blood loss. Surgical castration at a young age typically results in less blood loss and much less risk of complications or death. Lane highly recommends surgical castration because banding isn’t as reliable as surgery.
“With a surgical procedure, you count to two and it’s a steer,” Lane says. “If you’re banding animals, at any age, you can’t verify castration was complete. Bands can fail and other things can happen, which means the animal is still a bull.”
Disadvantages of banding include inappropriate placement, longer-term pain because testicles die slowly, broken bands and slower healing, which increases infection risk. Advantages include the fact that banding is bloodless and well-suited for wet and muddy conditions.
Lane notes that any producer who’s unsure about how to castrate a young animal should seek professional help in order to successfully and humanely complete the process.
“Farmers and ranchers have a lot of people watching now,” Lane says. “I believe it’s more humane to castrate a calf at a young age. However we do it, we want to do it well.”
Robbing profits
Blasi’s study revealed that stress related to late castration directly lowered ADG and indirectly increased animals’ susceptibility to disease. It also increased overall cost of gain (COG).
“BRD, the primary disease problem of recently weaned or received calves, is also the most common disease of feedlot cattle,” Blasi says. “BRD directly results in lost profits at sale due to selling at lighter birthweights and increased costs due to more days on feed. The disease also adds to the cost of labor, medication and veterinarian bills.”
In calculating COG for the KSU study, Blasi and his team included cost of rations, labor, equipment and fuel. Findings revealed that, if late-castrated steers gained weight more slowly and spent more days on feed, extra labor and fuel would increase COG.
Carcass data were collected on a random set of the study’s calves across two different trials (six lots). Hays Feeders (Hays, Kansas) finished the cattle on a high-grain diet. Calves were sonogrammed to determine preliminary carcass characteristics and decide whether cattle were ready for slaughter.
Cattle arriving at Hays Feeders averaged 800 pounds and were fed between 130 and 145 days. Lighter-weight cattle were fed for at least 160 days prior to slaughter.
National Beef Inc. (Dodge City, Kansas) harvested the cattle and collected carcass information, including kill date, hot carcass weight (HCW), marbling score, ribeye area, backfat, price per calf and price per pound.
Study data also included whether or not a carcass qualified for Certified Angus Beef (CAB) or National Black Angus Beef (NAB), a U.S. Premium Beef in-house grade, or if it showed hard bone, dark cutter or age of 30 months.
The study analysis showed that at the time of the study, “bulls should be discounted, on average, 11 cents per pound relative to a steer.”
“In that study, cattle arriving as bulls, with greater birthweights, and requiring treatment for BRD, exhibited decreased daily gains, lower HCW and longer time to market relative to early castrated, healthy steers,” Blasi says. “Late-castrated steers had a 3 percent greater probability of needing treatment for BRD than did early castrated steers.”
The study determined that, in the study animals, “need for BRD treatment significantly decreased HCW and increased days to market, with a direct implication that purchasers of feeder calves should discount bulls relative to steers and should discount heavier animals relative to lighter calves.
Average price discounts ranging from 4 cents to 17 cents per pound were calculated for bulls relative to steers, for cattle of varying arrival birthweight. These values are consistent with model-estimated price differences found in other studies.”
The study went on to say that, “It is important to note that this study focused on the implications of production and management decisions in the stocker phase. However, the data available come from receiving trials and cover a smaller time frame than true back-grounding operations. Thus, results from these receiving trials would need to be extrapolated for the extended background phase.”
Blasi believes cattle buyers sometimes end up with as much as 60 percent bulls in a truckload of cattle, which takes a big bite out of feedlot profits.
“Both the quality of the meat and the increase in dark cuts at the packing plant cause such significant discounts that feeding out young, uncastrated bulls is a big negative for today’s beef producers,” Blasi says.
“Even though steers command a higher price at the market, the price difference hasn’t been enough to overcome the reluctance of many to adopt early castration as a routine practice,” Blasi adds. “However, the rapidly changing welfare implications of cattle castration may ultimately move the industry to demand early castration or adopt some type of pain control if castration is delayed.” 
PHOTO: Feedlot operators know the advantages of buying castrated bull calves. If you’re not castrating, you are leaving money on the table – and it adds up. Staff photo.
Loretta Sorensen is a freelance writer based in Yankton, South Dakota. Email Loretta Soresen.
Bulls Versus Steers
The resulting data analysis included:
- ADG for entire set: 3.108 pounds
- ADG for bulls castrated prior to arrival: 3.417
- ADG for bulls castrated post-arrival: 2.91
- 28 percent of calves required BRD treatment
- 40 percent of treated calves required multiple BRD treatments
- Need for treatment of BRD decreased ADG by about .44 pounds
- Additional BRD treatments decreased ADG by another .7 pounds for the second treatment and .925 pounds beyond that for the third treatment
- Treatment for other ailments was also found to decrease gain by .485 pounds per day
- Steers had almost a 3 percent greater probability of never needing treatment compared with bulls
- There was a 9.63 percent probability that bulls needed one BRD treatment compared with a 7.38 percent probability for steers
- Bulls had a 2.4 percent probability of requiring multiple treatments versus steers’ probability of 1.8 percent
- Bulls castrated on arrival had a 92 percent greater incidence of morbidity than those castrated before arrival
- 29 percent more late-castrated steers were treated for respiratory disease than early castrated steers
- COG was least for a healthy steer – $1.54 per pound
- COG for a healthy bull was $1.64 per pound
- COG for both types of animals increased when disease treatments were required – bulls needing three treatments had a COG of $3.61 per pound
