Title: Why Do We Castrate Bulls? | The Cow Docs
Headings: Why Do We Castrate Bulls?
Why Do We Castrate Bulls?
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Content: To the lay person this might seem like a needless procedure. But there are many reasons why this is necessary for the welfare of the cattle herd and the safety of the people who work with them. The primary benefit to castrating bull calves is to temper their tempers. Bulls like to fight with each other. It is even more of a concern when new bulls are introduced to each other or when the bull calves hit puberty. They fight to establish dominance and even after the pecking order is determined they will continue to fight to re-assert dominance. At the clinic I’ve worked on many bulls that have been banged up fighting with each other. Sometimes there is no option but to put the animal down. Since we need breeding bulls, this problem cannot be avoided entirely, however, by castrating the non-breeding animals the number of bulls goes from half the calf crop to three or four (or none if the rancher buys all his bulls, which is very common). Since bulls are more likely to have an attitude, bulls are typically more aggressive towards people than steers.