Bull calf question

At what age do y'all band/cut y'alls bull calfs that you plan on selling/showing as steers? The reason I ask is I have always waited till they are 5 or so months old, but a guy told me I needed to be waiting until they are atleast 7 months............

What was the guy's reasoning for waiting that long B4 cutting his calves? We band calves @ one day unless they have herd sire potential.

We knife cut all calves first part of May (March/Arpil born calves) when we brand/vaccinate.

CAB said:

What was the guy's reasoning for waiting that long B4 cutting his calves? We band calves @ one day unless they have herd sire potential.

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He said so they can devlope, but I did not ask him for any more details. My arguement would be wouldn't they look "bully" ???? He is defiantly more into comerical breeding so maybe thats why he waits so long....

I have heard from some guys who been in this clubby thing a long time that cutting bulls under 3 months old will increase the chance of having kidney stones... I asked my vet and he said he never heard of such a thing but anyway I cut and vac  my calves shortly after I start breeding and get implants in the steers.

I calve first part of march and they all get cut in the spring along with vacc. They also get implanted when cut and then implanted again when weaned in the fall. Some guys stay away from implants and that might be their reason for holding off to get more growth out of them. Usually they don't get real bully looking until late summer or fall if you leave them.

Before they are 4 months old. I would agree waiting until 7 months is going to give those secondary sex characteristics. Also a lot more stress the longer you wait.

Calves born here in late February to mid-April.  They get cut at the end of May/beginning of June when breeding cows.

CAB said:

What was the guy's reasoning for waiting that long B4 cutting his calves? We band calves @ one day unless they have herd sire potential.

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cab just wondering, how do you guys determine heard sire potential at one day old? not being a smart elic, more of an arrogant question on my part. . . . we knife cut calves at 4 months old when we work them. but have a bull thats known to put an extra nut in there. so we have to recheck after we wean them and there will be some extras that had an extra seed up in them. but we knife it at 4 months

We band ours with the Callicrate bander when we know absolutely for sure that they need to be steers usually about 6 months.  We have banded two year old bulls that developed issues with no problem. The stress lasts only for a few hours and they don't miss a lick.  You give up a lot of growth and muscle if you band too young plus it is a nonreversible procedure.  Just be sure to give a tetanus shot when banding.

Show stopper 95 said:

CAB said:

What was the guy's reasoning for waiting that long B4 cutting his calves? We band calves @ one day unless they have herd sire potential.

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cab just wondering, how do you guys determine heard sire potential at one day old? not being a smart elic, more of an arrogant question on my part. . . . we knife cut calves at 4 months old when we work them. but have a bull thats known to put an extra nut in there. so we have to recheck after we wean them and there will be some extras that had an extra seed up in them. but we knife it at 4 months

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It would boil down to genetics more than anything else as far as if we let them go for awhile & there are some that you breed for showsteers that I'd never keep for a bull. Just too freaky for me to use as a bull.