Steers are the product of breeding cows for meat production.
They are the male bovines that deemed inadequate for use to breeding cows and heifers for varied reasons, from poor conformation to inadequate growth or muscling.
Many bull calves must be castrated because none are needed to be used for breeding in a cow herd, and the producer is simply looking to sell all male calves--if not all offspring--for income purposes.
Other reasons that bull calves--especially those which are purebred stock--are castrated or steered include that they are considered inferior for sale as breeding animals.
Much higher and more stricter selection is placed on bulls than females, which may be the reason why you may find some steers that look like they should have been kept intact at a glance, but upon closer inspection the flaws become apparent.
It is actually much easier for a producer to select a steer from a group of male bovines than it is a good herd bull if you know what to look for.
Basically you are looking for traits that a bull should not have in order for it to be a steer.
Certain things include lack of depth in the heartgirth and pelvic area, lack of masculinity, poor feet and leg structure, imbalance throughout, and even lack of muscling in the neck, shoulders and hindquarters.
For many producers, a bull that looks like a "good feeder steer" should be made into such and not kept as a bull.
Some may disagree, but this could be due to two things: inexperience and lack of knowledge in bovine conformation, or "barn blindness" in other words, a producer thinks that the cattle they have are the next best thing and fail to see the flaws in their animals, be it individually or as a herd.
It is the producer's choice as to the age to castrate their bull calves.
If a producer doesn't need any bulls for his cow herd or has no intention to sell any bulls, then all bull calves that are born that year on his farm or ranch are castrated, quite often soon after birth.
Other producers may choose to take advantage of the higher rate of gain and leanness factor that bulls have over steers.
This means that a producer won't castrate his steers until just before weaning age or right after.
One must note that there really is no right or wrong time to cut or band, just as long as it is done as painless and stress-free as possible.
To minimize stress, most bulls should be steered before they reach a year old.
After that point they loose weight and experience much more pain and stress than if they were done right after birth.
There are several methods of castrating bulls popular among farmers and ranchers: cutting or banding.
Cutting simply involves using a clean (preferably sterilized) very sharp knife or surgical blade and cutting open the scrotal sac in two slits, taking out the testicles and making a diagonal cut on each epididimal tube--along with the blood vessels--to remove the testes.
If done right, there shouldn't be much blood-loss.
Banding is taking a rubber ring attached to an elastrator and stretching it over the scrotum right up to the base or the neck of the scrotum, between the top of the testes and the belly of the bull or bull calf.
The ring is released and cuts off the circulation to the testes.
Within a couple weeks the testes die and "rot" or slough off.
Other methods include the burdizzo, emasculation, short-scrotum, and injectable chemical.
The former two crush the epididimal tube hard enough to remove the testes, the third last cutting the bottom third of the scrotum, pushing the testes up into the body and suturing up the sac, and the last injecting a chemical into each testical to, essentially, get them to die and slough off on their own.
Bulls are made into steers more than just because steers are safer to handle than bulls are.
As a matter of fact steers are still capable of being a hazard to work around, and are animals you shouldn't let your guard down on merely because they have no testicles.
They are still stronger, bigger, and faster than you, and can still hurt you even when they don't mean it.
Regardless, it's better to handle a herd of rangy steers that don't want much to do with you most of the time than a herd of young, testosterone-hyped bulls that may seem like they're more focused on eating than reproduction, until they start ruining your fences if there's a cow or heifer in heat somewhere nearby! Steer meat in North American markets is prized and more selected over meat from bulls.
This is because people in the USA and Canada prefer more marbled beef than the really lean stuff they'd get from a bull.
A producer will get more money from selling steer calves for beef production than they would if they sold bulls for the same reason.
This may be different in other markets around the world.
A steer is much less likely to go climbing across the fence in search of females in heat than young bulls will, and they'll be more focused on eating than their reproductive woes.
A producer only needs an average of one bull per 25 to 50 cows per breeding season, not one bull per cow.
Since there are only so many cows in the world, only so many bulls can be or are suitable for use on those cows.
The rest are castrated and used for beef production.
Unfortunately there are still plenty of bulls out there that should have been de-nutted a long time ago and are still being used to breed cows.
If you're the type that are looking for steers to use for beef or to sell as excess stock from your breeding herd, might I suggest you reverse the problem: in all of the most recent year's male progeny from your cow herd, look for the males worth keeping as bulls and castrate all the rest.
It will make things a lot easier for you than having to worry about picking steers from your breeding herd.
Do your research on bovine conformation before you begin, and ask a friend, mentor or neighbor more experienced in all things cattle for help.