title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Ciència Animal, Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Álvarez-Rodríguez
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria (CITA), Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón - IA2 (CITA-Unizar), Zaragoza, Spain.
authors.forename: Pere
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Albertí
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria (CITA), Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón - IA2 (CITA-Unizar), Zaragoza, Spain.
authors.forename: Guillermo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ripoll
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria (CITA), Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón - IA2 (CITA-Unizar), Zaragoza, Spain.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Blasco
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria (CITA), Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón - IA2 (CITA-Unizar), Zaragoza, Spain.
authors.forename: Albina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sanz
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D002369:Castration / Q000523:psychology*; D002417:Cattle / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000523:psychology*; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000097:blood; D007334:Insulin-Like Growth Factor I / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D013739:Testosterone / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D013739:Testosterone; D007334:Insulin-Like Growth Factor I; D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: IGF-I; bull; cortisol; flight speed test; steer