What Knife do you use for Castration?

[HJK]

There are lots of castration knives commercially available for ranchers, vets and really dedicated feminists.
Personally, I'm waiting for a Busse

 

[eveled]

RMK has a knife called a cattleman.

 

[Legendary_Jarl]

Years ago on the farm we used some curved bladed knives to slash the sacks and milk the testicles out. What are they doing today? What works best and what different knives do you use for different animals?

I use a dull knife Mexican cartel style to increase the agony of the victim...



j/k

 

[GatorFlash1]

For those who have never seen this process here are a couple of videos. It really is very easy to do.

 

[GmpaJim]

I made it to 5.2, after that, you’re on your own.

I hope you folks who do this for love, money & service know, the rest of us appreciate your grit. It’s just tongue in cheek. Which, is as close to sheep balls, as my cheek will experience.

 

[Horsewright]

Her year book picture has the caption, “Least likely to be bullied”

Kinda a funny story along those lines:

This is our daughter Smoke when she was 13 or 14. She played basketball form middle school through college. Many of her coaches often said the reason she was so tough was she grew up wrassling calves. She's 26 now and married but she and her husband help at every branding:

Growing up that way she learned to cut calves too, of course. This is her here cutting one. I can tell as most of my cowboys eschew red finger nail polish:

Sometimes they can be difficult to get out and so one of my cowboys was helping her here:

So fast forward bout a year and she's going on her first date. The young man is here at the house to pick her up and she's in the bathroom doing one more thing to her hair, ya know the drill. Meanwhile Mom and I are making small talk with the young man. Mom had printed out these pictures with out my knowledge and was showing them to the young man. "Do you know what she's doing here?" Big gulp: "looks like she's castrating something." "Thats right, have her home by 10:30." They were back at 10:25. Didn't have to clean a gun or nothing........

So when my son had told Emma above to put the knife in her teeth its what he does too. He's bout 19 here and since High School he has been a working cowboy.

He'll be 31 next month and currently works on a large ranch in n/e NV that is literally larger than several eastern states.

Horsewright took me back 40 years. Just as I remember it. Some blade of yours, any blade, is on my 'will buy' list.

Thank you sir for the kind words!

Always appreciate Horsewright's insights and illustrative posts about his talents, work and lifestyle. I want to be him when when I grow up!

And you too, sir! Thank you!

Like you say, the style of knife varies with the part of the country. I've used a large stainless steel Buck stockman's spay blade (easy to sterilize) and a disposable scalpel. The main thing I want is small and razor sharp. One difference between the way you are doing it and my days with a small herd is that I usually worked on them when they were only a week or two old. Easier to take them to the ground when you don't have horses. My dad never liked the blood and gore of cutting so he used both a clamp and bands. And every so often he missed a nut and paid for it at auction.

That happened to us to a couple of times. You certainly do pay for it at the sale. Thats why we went back to the knife, quicker, quicker recovery and for sure!

Recently we had a colt cut. This is Mitchy The Kid. If you are a fan of Yellowstone you've seen his grandfather, Metallic Cat. Here he's about 6 months old in this pic:

At about 8 months we had him cut. We were waiting for the weather to change so that flys aren't as much of a problem. We ran him down the hill to have the work done as we wanted three different things done while he was out. The castration, removal of the wolf teeth and freeze branding. Our local vet hadn't done the freeze branding before and was hesitant so we went down the hill at his recommendation. The vet there gave him a shot of sleepy juice and he laid down very quietly. Castration first, took just a few minutes.

The vet used a scalpel:

.

Pulling the wolf teeth was so fast we didn't even get any pics. So here's the freeze branding. Instead of using a hot iron this special brass brand has been soaked in liquid nitrogen for sometime. The deep cold (305 degrees below zero) kills the color follicles in the hair so when it grows back after several months what was dark hair will be light hair and what was light hair will be dark hair. Basically cyro quenching a horse!

He left it on for exactly 40 seconds:

Bout an hour later Mitchy woke up and was ready to go home. He is what is called a red roan as far as color goes. Some roans have what are called skunk tails and he does.

I think it looks like Space Invaders. Smoke dragging a calf she necked to set it up to be heeled. She's on her horse Lil Man and you can see his freeze brand on his left shoulder:

I got the heels:

 

[Jesse B.]

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

[mobilerd]

Troll of the week WINNER!!!

 

[GmpaJim]

Kinda a funny story along those lines:

This is our daughter Smoke when she was 13 or 14. She played basketball form middle school through college. Many of her coaches often said the reason she was so tough was she grew up wrassling calves. She's 26 now and married but she and her husband help at every branding:

Growing up that way she learned to cut calves too, of course. This is her here cutting one. I can tell as most of my cowboys eschew red finger nail polish:

Sometimes they can be difficult to get out and so one of my cowboys was helping her here:

So fast forward bout a year and she's going on her first date. The young man is here at the house to pick her up and she's in the bathroom doing one more thing to her hair, ya know the drill. Meanwhile Mom and I are making small talk with the young man. Mom had printed out these pictures with out my knowledge and was showing them to the young man. "Do you know what she's doing here?" Big gulp: "looks like she's castrating something." "Thats right, have her home by 10:30." They were back at 10:25. Didn't have to clean a gun or nothing........

So when my son had told Emma above to put the knife in her teeth its what he does too. He's bout 19 here and since High School he has been a working cowboy.

He'll be 31 next month and currently works on a large ranch in n/e NV that is literally larger than several eastern states.


Thank you sir for the kind words!


And you too, sir! Thank you!



That happened to us to a couple of times. You certainly do pay for it at the sale. Thats why we went back to the knife, quicker, quicker recovery and for sure!

Recently we had a colt cut. This is Mitchy The Kid. If you are a fan of Yellowstone you've seen his grandfather, Metallic Cat. Here he's about 6 months old in this pic:

At about 8 months we had him cut. We were waiting for the weather to change so that flys aren't as much of a problem. We ran him down the hill to have the work done as we wanted three different things done while he was out. The castration, removal of the wolf teeth and freeze branding. Our local vet hadn't done the freeze branding before and was hesitant so we went down the hill at his recommendation. The vet there gave him a shot of sleepy juice and he laid down very quietly. Castration first, took just a few minutes.

The vet used a scalpel:

.

Pulling the wolf teeth was so fast we didn't even get any pics. So here's the freeze branding. Instead of using a hot iron this special brass brand has been soaked in liquid nitrogen for sometime. The deep cold (305 degrees below zero) kills the color follicles in the hair so when it grows back after several months what was dark hair will be light hair and what was light hair will be dark hair. Basically cyro quenching a horse!

He left it on for exactly 40 seconds:

Bout an hour later Mitchy woke up and was ready to go home. He is what is called a red roan as far as color goes. Some roans have what are called skunk tails and he does.

I think it looks like Space Invaders. Smoke dragging a calf she necked to set it up to be heeled. She's on her horse Lil Man and you can see his freeze brand on his left shoulder:

I got the heels:

That date story is too funny!
I know this is about the right knife, but I’ve gotta ask about the right hat.
You folks have ball caps, sombreros (?) a cowboy hat and in between. Obviously personal taste, they’re all good for sun…but do you switch up for weather? Like, it’s windy, no wide brim today?
Im also curious about brand name popularity. Not to imply uppity, but like with knives there’s a range.

 

[Sidehill Gouger]

Kinda a funny story along those lines:

This is our daughter Smoke when she was 13 or 14. She played basketball form middle school through college. Many of her coaches often said the reason she was so tough was she grew up wrassling calves. She's 26 now and married but she and her husband help at every branding:

Growing up that way she learned to cut calves too, of course. This is her here cutting one. I can tell as most of my cowboys eschew red finger nail polish:

Sometimes they can be difficult to get out and so one of my cowboys was helping her here:

So fast forward bout a year and she's going on her first date. The young man is here at the house to pick her up and she's in the bathroom doing one more thing to her hair, ya know the drill. Meanwhile Mom and I are making small talk with the young man. Mom had printed out these pictures with out my knowledge and was showing them to the young man. "Do you know what she's doing here?" Big gulp: "looks like she's castrating something." "Thats right, have her home by 10:30." They were back at 10:25. Didn't have to clean a gun or nothing........

So when my son had told Emma above to put the knife in her teeth its what he does too. He's bout 19 here and since High School he has been a working cowboy.

He'll be 31 next month and currently works on a large ranch in n/e NV that is literally larger than several eastern states.


Thank you sir for the kind words!


And you too, sir! Thank you!



That happened to us to a couple of times. You certainly do pay for it at the sale. Thats why we went back to the knife, quicker, quicker recovery and for sure!

Recently we had a colt cut. This is Mitchy The Kid. If you are a fan of Yellowstone you've seen his grandfather, Metallic Cat. Here he's about 6 months old in this pic:

At about 8 months we had him cut. We were waiting for the weather to change so that flys aren't as much of a problem. We ran him down the hill to have the work done as we wanted three different things done while he was out. The castration, removal of the wolf teeth and freeze branding. Our local vet hadn't done the freeze branding before and was hesitant so we went down the hill at his recommendation. The vet there gave him a shot of sleepy juice and he laid down very quietly. Castration first, took just a few minutes.

The vet used a scalpel:

.

Pulling the wolf teeth was so fast we didn't even get any pics. So here's the freeze branding. Instead of using a hot iron this special brass brand has been soaked in liquid nitrogen for sometime. The deep cold (305 degrees below zero) kills the color follicles in the hair so when it grows back after several months what was dark hair will be light hair and what was light hair will be dark hair. Basically cyro quenching a horse!

He left it on for exactly 40 seconds:

Bout an hour later Mitchy woke up and was ready to go home. He is what is called a red roan as far as color goes. Some roans have what are called skunk tails and he does.

I think it looks like Space Invaders. Smoke dragging a calf she necked to set it up to be heeled. She's on her horse Lil Man and you can see his freeze brand on his left shoulder:

I got the heels:

Horses are trickier than cattle. For starters you have to cut them at an older age. We always left that to a vet but I'm sure a lot of the really big horse spreads do it themselves. Dad ran around 100 head most of the time.

 

[5DoorEstate]

Love you guys though. Keep em sharp. Please.

 

[Horsewright]

That date story is too funny!
I know this is about the right knife, but I’ve gotta ask about the right hat.
You folks have ball caps, sombreros (?) a cowboy hat and in between. Obviously personal taste, they’re all good for sun…but do you switch up for weather? Like, it’s windy, no wide brim today?
Im also curious about brand name popularity. Not to imply uppity, but like with knives there’s a range.

One of the big differences is there are two styles of cowboys and this can be reflected in hats. Those influenced by the Texas tradition might wear one style of hat and those from more of a Californio tradition might wear another. Then again maybe not or somewhere in between. We wear what is often referred to as a flat hat as the Texicans call it and they will wear what we call a taco hat. Now we will on occasion wear a ball cap if its windy but its got to be real windy. This day was cold with 45-50 mph winds (tough to rope in those conditions).

Still wearing hats in that wind. Two flat hats, mine (the brown one) is a full custom, 100 percent beaver by KJ Murphy's Custom Hats out of Santa Yanez Ca. Tyren's looks to be a Sunbody straw which is what my daughter Smoke wears. I traded KJ three large bowies I made for that hat. These young ladies that help us gather have hats that are in between:

Although Mary Kay has hats she has trouble keeping em on so tends to the ball caps:

Some of Smoke's friend's from high school help us too and they don't have hats so they wear ball caps.

Nichole, my wife in the brown vest, wears a custom by Mackey's Custom Hats out of WY in that pic above.

I have one too but don't wear it as much these days, bout wore out. I've had many of their hats over the years:

Smoke's husband Dave. His hat is an off the shelf by a brand I'd never heard of Serantelli. Its a very nice hat, I was impressed:

Proud parents of the bride. Nichole has on a new Mackey custom that she ordered for the event and I got my KJ on. This new Mackey one is a 100 percent beaver too. She was gonna get a 50 percent beaver but time was of the essence and they like other folks were having supply chain problems but did have the full beaver hat body in stock. What the heck it was like only a $100 or $150 or something more, not terrible.

The groom and his parents. It was a kinda a hat and knife wedding:

The bride didn't wear one but her new cousin, part of the ring security detail, did. He was running out of gas:

I use to wear Resitol hats many years ago as far as off the shelf goes but honestly with a lot of the custom makers you can get a hat made for you if you don't go 100 percent beaver for bout the same money as an off the shelf hat. Course there is a time when ball caps seem more appropriate:

Had to defrag a bit for a few days after the wedding.

 

[Horsewright]

Horses are trickier than cattle. For starters you have to cut them at an older age. We always left that to a vet but I'm sure a lot of the really big horse spreads do it themselves. Dad ran around 100 head most of the time.

Yeah I use to raise quite a few colts and I always had the vet do the castration. Mitchy besides being well bred ($$$$$$) was also quite a difficult project. Took 3 years to get the mare in foal. Well she got in foal the second year but didn't keep it lost it at 31 days. Third year she took right away but had been on a special oral supplement daily for months. Since breeding to these kind of stallions (Call Me Mitch is the sire) is all done at special breeding farms under specialized Vet care its more $$$$$$$$$$. Course then she couldn't have an easy pregnancy. Almost died of colic a couple of times in the last trimester, more $$$$ So when it came time we took her back over to the breeding farm to be foaled out as she would be under veterinary care 24/7 and if anybody was gonna need vet assistance foaling it was gonna be this mare. More $$$$ but not as bad as a guy might think. Funny thing, everything went smooth and she had no problems at all. Got a call at 2:30 in the morning mom and baby are doing fine. So we drove the three hours over in the morning and there he was:

Three weeks later we brought him home. Point of all this? With that kind of $$ invested in this guy, we sure as heck wasn't gonna cut him.