WHAT IS CASTRATION?
Castration is a process of removing the testes of
the male animal to render it sterile or incapable of breeding successfully. This is a form of occasional management
practices carried out in farm animals.
- Castration prevents indiscriminate breeding of animal i.e., animals of undesirable genes can be removed from the breeding program.
- Castrated farm animals are calm and easy to handle.
- Castrated farm animals have high feed conversion ratio.
- Castrated farm animals have a faster growth rate compared to intact male animals.
- Meat from castrated animals is of high quality. For instance, beef from Steers has more tenderness, flavor and low-fat content compared to that from the Bull.
- Castrated animals usually have attractive appearance.
METHODS
OF CASTRATION
- Chemical castration: this involves the use of drugs to inactivate the testes and this is done by injecting sclerosing or toxic agents into the testicular body to cause damage to the testes. It requires additional procedure and technical-know-how with a longer healing time compared to surgical techniques.
- Physical castration: this is the commonly used method by most livestock farmers, it can be divided into two, these are:
1. Bloodless castration:
this is the use of constriction tools to crush the testicles or remove the
scrotum completely. The tools used include; Burdizzo, rubber ring and
Elastrator
 |
| Bloodless castration |
2. Surgical castration: this involves making
an open incision to the scrotal sac to remove the testes completely from the animal or block the blood vessel to the testes.
- Hormonal castration: this involved the injection of a hormone called immunocontraceptive to induce the production of antibodies against Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone. This results in the decreased production of endogenous hormones and this method are also known as Immunocastration. This method has been found to produce male animals with increased carcass weight and high-quality meat compared to the physical method.
WHAT IS THE BEST
AGE TO CASTRATE FARM ANIMALS?
Castration is a very painful process to farm animals
hence it must be done when the animal is at a very young age. Young animals can tolerate pain more compared to a matured animal, the table below showing the best age to castrate farm animals.
Farm animals
|
Age of
castration
|
Goat
|
12 weeks or 4 weeks to 4 months
|
Sheep
|
2 to 12 weeks
|
Cattle
|
1 to 3 months
|
Pig
|
14 days
|
المشاركات
This is cool..Very nice and informative
ردحذفKeep it up