The only downside with getting the seller to do them is that doing it very young with burdizzos can be rather difficult, everything is very small. If you are pre-ordering you can ask them to ring, as you would with lambs, within the first few days of life. BH reckons they never grow as well if they're castrated very young, so we tend to do ours at 8-10 weeks or thereabouts, but the odd animal we have done very young has grown on absolutely fine as far as I can see
If you do end up with entire bull calves, you will need a crush or similar in order to restrain them for castrating. One person needs to be able to get in beside the calf, restrain it against the side of the crush and hold the testicle and cords correctly for the other person who is wielding the burdizzos. Then swap sides to do the other testicle. It takes a great deal of strength to close the burdizzos, especially once the animal is more than about a month old.
If the seller has a problem with castrating them for you, then I'd check with your vet how much they'd charge, and whether your facilities would be acceptable to them. Otherwise there is BH's cousin in Sparty Lea
, but you know what it's like with farmers, it's getting them when you need them
- otherwise I'd have offered that we could come and help, but with winter coming, I'd hate for you to get stuck with them because we couldn't get to you at the right time...