Raising Bulls for beef

[dexterfarm]

This year I am thinking about not castrating any of my bull calves to take advantage of the increased weight gain. Any advice from those that have kept their calves intact for beef? What age are you butchering? How do you manage all of those adolescent bulls at once?

[kansasdexters]

I have harvested several young bulls at 24 to 26 months of age. In all cases, the quality grade was not as good as same age steers, the yield grade was better. What that means is that the bulls did not finish as well as the steers. Bulls do not lay down fat on the exterior of their carcass like steers do, even when they are fed exactly the same. This can reduce the amount of time that they can be hung to dry age and the resulting tenderness of the meat.

Bulls also do not produce the same level of marbling in the meat that steers do. There are more pounds of lean meat on a bull carcass, but it may not end up being as tender and juicy as that of a same age steer.

Bulls are also harder to keep in a fenced pasture area for finishing, if there are any cows in the neighborhood that are cycling. Bulls will pace the fence and attempt to go through the fence to get to open females. For this reason alone, we prefer to avoid bulls in our finishing pastures.

Patti

[cddexter]

In 30 years of raising Dexters, I've never castrated a bull calf. Meat was lean, but still had some marbelling and was tender. Mostly grass fed, some with a little extra grain finish. No complaints about taste or tenderness from all my buyers. I usually slaughtered around 22-26 months. With close to 70 head, I dkept the bull calves in a separate area with their own entrance to the barn, and their own area in the barn.

It's hard to get the butcher to hang for more than 2 weeks, or three at most. There was some waste from lack of cover on the long hanging ones, but ti wasn't a big deal.

I figured since everyone liked the product, why waste the time, energy, cost etc. to castrate.

carol d.

[midhilldexters]

I've also done bulls the last few times, they do pack on the pounds a bit quicker than the steers. Agree with Patti that the meat is less marbled on them, although like CD also said, mine were also very tender.

I do think genetics play a roll In tenderness, as well as feed, so take that into account.

Carol K

[Deleted]

My uncle is a hereford breeder for meat and he doesnt castrate either; saving time, money etc and he is set up to run multiple bulls away from cycling females.
Same reasons, more meat per carcass.

He has always said that there is no difference in the falvour of the meat between a steer and that of a bull.

But he will hang his meat for a minimum of 4 weeks, not the standard two, and growing up having his meat in the family freezer, I remember yummy tender meat always on the plate. (And I am a blue/rare girl )

We intend to follow suit especially after hearing from many Dexter Studs
"we shouldnt have castrated that one, or that one".
We can wait until maturity and then make a decision.

[dexterfarm]

In researching this what I found is( of course nothing specific to dexters).
It is much more popular in Europe than it is here.
It is more important to keep a bull calm prior to slaughter than it is a steer. Not sure how to accomplish that short of a mobile butcher which I don't think there are any around here. But who knows it sounds like the mobile butchers are gaining in popularity so maybe someday. Ours never get all that upset when we trailer them. They do get some trailer time since our grazing pastures are in a different location. So many of ours get moved twice a year. I don't think there would be any way to transport them and have them not get at least a little agitated.

I also looked at delaying the castration. But it looks like there is not much advantage in that. Delaying a few months seems to have little to no ending difference. If delaying for say a year. It looks like they still don't put on the fat cover. and the stress from the castration slows the weight growth down. So that you end up with a final weight somewhere in between a bull and a steer but with the meat characteristics more like the bull.