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Letter to the editor...

published: August 20th 2010

The following letter was received concerning our story in the August 6th, 2010 edition concerning Mike Rowe as an advocate for agriculture. Southern Live-stock Publishing’s (SLP) purpose in the story was to point out that Rowe was speaking on behalf of agriculture, not to take a negative position on banding.

Subject: Letter to the Editor - re: Mike Rowe
    Several years ago, I spent some time in New Zealand on sheep and cattle ranches with veterinarian, Dr. John Southworth. Dr. Southworth was interested in the Callicrate Bander for use on cattle and sheep.
    We compared the Callicrate Bander to the traditional “Cheerio” type elastrator rings on a set of his lambs. The lambs ranged in size from newborn, which had testicles small enough that the elastrator rings would fit, to big lambs which had testicles too large for the elastrator rings, but just right for the Callicrate Bander.
    We were both impressed in a good way (The Callicrate Bander) and in a very troubling way (elastrator rings). All the lambs receiving the elastrator rings showed extreme discomfort. They were rolling around bleating and kicking. The lambs, both newborn and big lambs, which had the high-tension Callicrate bands applied, were comfortable and back suckling their mothers right away. We checked on the lambs frequently. The elastrator lambs were still showing signs of pain 12 hours later. The Callicrate Bander lambs were laying around comfortably and nursing.
    We have seen the same results in cattle. Mike Rowe’s program on castration with his teeth was entertaining, but misleading in its conclusions.
    I don’t know of anything more stressful to an animal than applying an elastrator ring, which lacks sufficient tension to ligate (provide sufficient tension/compression to shut off the blood supply and block pain) the body part.
    A high-tension band, such as that used with the Callicrate Bander, is by far the least stressful to both the animal and the person performing the castration. This provides an alternative to Mike Rowe having his mouth in the vicinity of a sheep’s rear-end.
    I would be happy to show Mike how to use the Callicrate Bander, but it certainly wouldn’t fit his criteria of one of the dirtiest jobs -- unless the bulls or lambs had been on wheat pasture.
    Mike Callicrate,
    Owner
    No-Bull
    Enterprises LLC             
    PO Box 748              
    St Francis KS 67756
    800-858-5974
    785-332-3344
    mike@nobull.net  
    www.nobull.net
SLS