Castration of male beef cattle is a routine practice in many countries. This procedure reduces management problems with aggressive and sexual behaviours. The provision of local anaesthesia before castration is a legislative requirement in some countries as a mean of improving the welfare of animals. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of the anti-inflammatory drug ketoprofen, alone or in combination with local anaesthesia, on cortisol, acute-phase proteins, performance, and immune response following the castration of bull calves. 40 Friesian calves were used in the study. The calves were tested with following treatments as follows; 1) control calves (no treatment), 2) surgical castration, 3) surgical castration following ketoprofen, 4) surgical castration following local anaesthesia (lidocaine hydrochloride), or 5) surgical castration following local anaesthesia and ketoprofen. Total cortisol response was greater in treatments of surgical castration, surgical castration following local anaesthesia and surgical castration following local anaesthesia and ketoprofen calves than in control calves and was not different between control and surgical castration following ketoprofen calves. Overall, this study demonstrates that ketoprofen and local anaesthesia were both effective at reducing the peak cortisol response following castration; the castration associated total response was suppressed by the administration of ketoprofen, but not local anaesthesia. Therefore, systematic analgesia using ketoprofen is more effective than local anaesthesia during castration to alleviate the associated stress response.