Effect of castration at 10 months of age on growth physiology and behavior of male feral beef cattle

Abstract

This study compared the growth performance, plasma testosterone and cortisol levels around castration at 10 months of age, and plasma insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I concentration and flight speed, in intact bulls and steers from 10 to 21 months of age in a feral Spanish breed. Fourteen bulls (366.5 ± 48.5 kg live weight) were assigned at random to one of two treatments: surgically castrated (steers) or intact (bulls), and submitted to an identical fattening period. Steers reared until heavy live weights (21 months of age) grew slowly and had lower plasma IGF-I concentrations than intact bulls. These differences were mainly highlighted the month after surgery (11 months of age) and the last part of the fattening period (from 19 to 21 months of age). After surgical castration (11 and 12 months of age), steers showed a tendency to display greater flight speed values than intact bulls but baseline plasma cortisol concentration did not differ between groups at this time. At the end, steers and bulls reached nearly similar temperament, as flight speed did not differ between them. The results confirm the role of IGF-I as a key anabolic hormone in male beef cattle and thus it may reflect growth differences due to altered sex steroids production.

The authors wish to thank the staff of CITA de Aragón and Dr. Jorge Palacio for his valuable advice on flight speed recording. Study supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain and the European Union Regional Development Funds (Teruel Investment Funds (FITE 2014‐451A) Government of Aragon; INIA PET2007‐05‐C03‐01). J. Álvarez‐Rodríguez was in receipt of a grant from INIA‐DGA.