When it comes to castrating beef cattle, the kindest cut may be the early one.
United States Department of Agriculture scientists in Indiana have found calves castrated shortly after birth suffered less stress and recovered faster than those castrated at weaning time.
The Indiana lab studies livestock behavior to gauge the stress level in animals.
“It’s important to understand which management practices can be combined or should be performed independently to reduce stress in livestock,” said Julie Morrow-Tesch, an animal physiologist who heads the USDA research unit.
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“By integrating castration prior to weaning, stress levels may be lower for calves at weaning, thereby improving animal well-being.”
Morrow-Tesch used two different methods of castration – surgical and banding – on three separate groups of Angus, Simmental and crossbred calves. Two groups were castrated and one was not.
In banding, a tight rubber band around the animal’s scrotum cuts off the blood supply to the testicles. After several days, the scrotum drops off. Many cattle producers prefer this method because it’s less expensive and not as labor-intensive as surgically removing the testicles.
Calves are usually weaned when they’re 36 weeks old. The researchers castrated one group of animals at 36 weeks and the other at 33, which was three weeks before weaning. They measured the calves’ stress level by checking blood levels of haptaglobin, a protein the liver makes when an animal is injured.
They found that haptaglobin levels were higher in calves castrated at 36 weeks than those castrated at 33 weeks or at birth, indicating a higher level of stress for the older animals. Surgically castrated calves also showed higher levels of haptaglobin, meaning surgical castration was more stressful than banding.
