castrating a bull to run with cows

farmboy1130

hello, this year i am starting to use ai for the first time on my cows, i have a year old angus bull in the shed and i thought that if i castrated him by removing the testicles i would then be able to run him with cows about a week and a half after the proceedure to aid heat detection. he is due to be castrated in a week, i gave him the 10 in one vaccine a week ago and apparently have to wait another week so that he will have built up full immunity against any tetanus. the only thing is that after talking with a couple of neighbours over the past few days they said that the sperm can live on in the pipes of the animal for a while after casteration or vecectomising and that i should wait at least a month after casteration before running him with the cows. while i know that a vasectomised bull will actually insert his rod in to the cow. i seen a neighbour who ran a bullock that was castrated by removing the testicles and he was just mounting the cows but not inserting his rod. so i am not sure as to what to do. would it be safe or not to run the bullock with the cows a week and a half after castration ? thank you.

Rovi

What does the vet who'll be doing the procedure have to say?

5live

You will have to wait at least 6 weeks for all the sperm to die but i dont think its a good idea to do it to an old bull. You are better off doing it to a young bull, under a year, as it is less stressful and less dangerous as well. I would say either do a young male and wait or let it off till next year with one of this years poorer bull calves. Or better yet, buy a jersey cross bull calf as they are supposed to be the dogs b****x for the job, so to speak

pakalasa

I wonder how accurate the 6 weeks is. I got a vasectomy done on a young bull , but he was only done about 2 wks when the first cow started bulling. She calved well ahead of the rest, so I hope he doesn't have any in calf by now.:(

5live

I went to a farm walk yesterday and Doreen Corridan, the teagasc vet, was saying 6 weeks. I always thought it was 4 weeks. But them pesky little buggers get everywhere dont they:p so i would go for the longer time. If thet was the cows first bulling post calving then i think conception rates are around 30% and the bull was running low in ammunition so hopefully she wont hold

Muckit

5live wrote: »

I went to a farm walk yesterday and Doreen Corridan, the teagasc vet,

I didn't realise she was a vet! Is she involved with an AI company also? She breeds charolais too

redzerologhlen

Muckit wrote: »

I didn't realise she was a vet! Is she involved with an AI company also? She breeds charolais too

Shes tied up with munster someway muckit, she trained me doing the diy ai a few years ago. Ya they have the roundhill herd of charolais and limos and a few bulls in ai too.

5live

Muckit wrote: »

I didn't realise she was a vet! Is she involved with an AI company also? She breeds charolais too

And by all accounts, a damn good one too. She didnt take any sh1te from lads but she has mellowed in the last few years. And she doesnt believe in splitting hairs about stuff, straight to the root of the problem