In owning cattle, and other animals, sometimes you’re going to not want them to be able to reproduce. For us, we’ve handled that by pen rotation, keeping bulls we didn’t want with the females away from them. However, if we want to use them for meat, it’s apparently better to castrate them as they should put more weight on that way.

And so, this is our first adventure into the process of turning a bull into a steer via castration. The calf, which came from a cow owned by Mr. Woods, is owned by Mr. Plumley, who watched some videos on the Internet as to how to do this, and proceeded in the following way, which, from the research done, is actually less painful and more successful than “banding” (which was tried here unsuccessfully a couple of years ago as we believe the banded bull reproduced):

Castrating a Longhorn Bull Calf

We’re grateful to the Lord for being able to learn this process and for it being successful (the calf seems to be doing just fine a couple of weeks later), for granting this calf to Mr. Plumley, and for a safe delivery; and we pray the calf will grow to become what God has in mind for it, for His glory and the benefit of His Church.

— David