Bloodless Castrator For Beef, Dairy Animals

Bloodless Castrator for Beef, Dairy Animals LIVESTOCK Dairy (17) 13-2-29 "Once you try this new tool you'll never again use a knife to castrate," predicts Montana rancher LeGrand Wadsworth, of St. Ignatius, who has invented and patented a new "bloodless" castrator that has the important advantage of letting you raise beef or dairy calves as late-castrated bulls. Called the Eze Bloodless Castrator, it "picks up where rubber band castrating, limited primarily to lambs, leaves off," explains Wadsworth. With animals standing in a chute, the tool is used to loop and tie surgical latex tubing tight around the scrotum, just above the testicles. The tool pulls the thick wall tubing (5/16 in. dia.) extremely tight to completely cut off the blood supply, and it affixes a clip which serves as a knot to secure the tightly stretched tubing so it can't slip loose. Once secured, you cut off the tubing which comes in a continuous length spool. "In about 10 hours, the scrotom turns black because the blood supply has been cut off. In about 10 days, the scrotom is completely dead. If will fall off by itself, along with the stub piece of latex tubing and the clip, in about 25 days," explains Wadsworth. "Treated animals show very little if any stress. Usually, they're back eating, or chewing their cud, within 30 minutes after leaving the chute. The tool works on any size animal ùfrom small calves to mature bulls. Limited trials indicate it'll also work on stallions and rams." Since inventing the new tool four years ago, Wadsworth has castrated his annual calf crop without a knife. "We wait until bull calves are in the 500 to 600 lb. range. We run them through a chute and apply the Eze castrator treatment about 30 days be-fore marketing, allowing sufficient time for the scrotoms to dry up and fall off. If you want to market sooner after treatment, and eliminate the bullish look, you can use a knife 10 days after treatment to cut off the dried up scrotoms. "It's generally agreed that bulls grow faster than steers, and develop leaner carcasses. We figure late castration, without a knife, adds up to a bonus of 40 to 50 extra lbs. per animal over a 160 day period. At 80 cents alb., it adds up to $32 to $40 more per head. Because they're no longer bullish, feeder buyers don't discount these late-castrated calves." The new Eze Castrator tool, made of aluminum and stainless steel, sells for $149.95 and comes with enough clips and surgical latex tubing to treat 50 animals. Replacement tubing costs 45 cents per ft. and clips are 25 cents each. "With practice, you can do about four 500-lb. bulls per foot of tubing for a cost of 36 cents per animal," notes Wadsworth. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Eze Castrator, Wadsworth Mfg., 889 Dublin Gulch Rd., St. Ignatius, Mont. 59865 (ph 406 745-4348).

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