We were able to successfully band (castrate) Romeo, our Valentine's Day calf, a few days ago.
This task took several days of fairly intense strategizing. We've banded many little bull calves, but that was at our last place where we had a better set-up. Here, we're still working on infrastructure, so we had to improvise ... as well as create a Plan B and a Plan C, just in case Plan A went awry.
First thing up: Get another castrating tool. We have one, of course, but things are still misplaced even four years after our move, and the castrator is one of those things. It's around somewhere, and doubtless we'll come across it when we no longer needed it.
But bull calves have a fairly short window for easy castration. Not to get too graphic here, but the testicles descend about ten days after birth, and if we go too much beyond that, the calf is too large to easily handle. We figured we had a window of about four or five days to get the job done.
Anyway, that's why we found ourselves purchasing a new castrator at the feed store. We still have plenty of bands (and oddly, I knew just where those were).
The bands are small. They come in different sizes, of course, but all we need are bands for baby calves.
The way a castrator works is to slip a band over the four prongs...
...and then squeeze the handles of the castrator to spread the band open. This is then slipped over the bull calf's equipment and released in place. It's doubtless uncomfortable for the calf, at least at first, but it's otherwise bloodless and painless. Pinched off from its blood supply, the testicles will dry up and fall off after a few weeks.
On the day we wanted to band Romeo, we started by digging out the mud, ice, and gravel that was blocking the two large barn doors from closing. This was at least an hour's hard labor and took, among much else, a pick axe to break up the ice and allow us to shovel away the rest. Some of our future projects include installing rolling (instead of swinging) doors AND to put in a drain right in front of the barn.
After that was done – and after we let the cows settle back down after all this industry, so they wouldn't, y'know, get suspicious – we returned to the barn and started moving hay bales.
The way the barn is arranged is there's a wide swinging gate right next to the feed box.
The gate swings open, allowing us access to the livestock side from the side where we store the hay.
The idea was to move hay bales to create a small enclosed area, close the big barn doors, then scoot the calf through the gate and close it behind us. This would give us a small escape-proof cubicle to work on the calf, and where Filet (Romeo's mama) couldn't reach us.
In theory we would do this while the cows had their heads buried in the feed box and Filet wouldn't even notice what we were doing. This was the theory, you understand.
Rather to our surprise, it worked. Romeo is too young to have much interest in the hay yet, so we got everything ready (hay bales moved, castrator armed and ready, rope to put around his neck, etc.), then fed the rest of the animals and closed the big barn doors. Then we swung the gate wide open, gently walked Romeo to the other side (now blocked in with hay bales), and latched the gate behind him. After this, I put a rope around his neck and wrapped it around the arm of the feed box, straddled him, and lifted up his back legs so his hind quarters were up in the air. More by feel than anything else, Don carefully pulled the testicles down, slipped the band over the top, and released it.
Voilà. Done. Filet literally never even noticed what was going on with her baby. The calf didn't struggle (much) or make any noise. Seconds after the band was in place, we unlatched the gate and shooed little Romeo back in with the rest of the animals, then re-opened the big barn doors.
Phew! Something we'd worried about for days was accomplished in about two minutes (and some of that time was spent was re-arming the castrating tool after the first band prematurely popped off).
I woke up the next day, sore and achy. I managed to pull a muscle in my upper back and my lower leg during the process of banding Romeo. That's what comes from shoveling heavy ice and gravel, then lifting and dragging 70-pound hay bales, then wrestling a calf into position. Older Daughter listened to my litany of complaints, then said, "Well, console yourself with the thought that you had a better day than the calf did." Yeah, hard to argue that.
Yet the day after his banding, Romeo seemed hardly to notice anything was different. He came over as he always does to see what I was doing while cleaning the barn. He even licked my hand in greeting (what a forgiving little man!). He stood next to his sister Mignon and experimented with eating some hay.
Once in a while he sorta bent himself into a pretzel – hey, something is numb back there – but that was it. He frequently did the adorable little skippy-hops of a healthy calf, so I knew he wasn't feeling too out of sorts.
Now that the task was done, we decided to reward the herd by releasing them from the corral. We've been keeping the animals cooped up for the last few weeks, in large part because the snow was too deep to let them out. But the weather has been moderating and the snow has melted off on the south side of the barn. The animals are usually found there during the day, soaking up the rays.
Today I opened the gate to the large pasture and called the animals over. They came around from the side of the barn, a little curious and puzzled, but didn't see the open gate to the pasture, no matter how much I tried to show them they had their freedom.
But it didn't take them long to find their way out. Later I walked over to the south-facing slope to check on them and found the family soaking up the sun.
This is Romeo's first time out of the corral, and he looked very content.
He was surrounded by his mama and sister.
So all is right with this little boy's world.
