Building a new bull pen

[Ky cowboy]

I have been tossing around the idea of building a new bull pen to house our bull when not in use. It will be multi purposes really to wean calves etc. my Problem is I lease another farm and will hopefully be buying a new bull for it soon and instead of just leaving him out all the time was hoping to build the pen that could be split to house both bulls. The area I plan to use is about 1/2 acre it's in the corner of a pasture behind the barn close to everything's he bulls will need. But what kinda of fence can I put up to keep them apart. I've heard horror stories of bulls fighting and would lime to avoid this if possible. Or is this a train wreck waiting.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I've found that bulls only respect two kinds fences, super hot electric fence, and heavy pipe fence.
All other fences become null and void when a cows in heat.

 

[Ky cowboy]

I'm more worried bout the bulls fighting. Should I keep them seperate or will they work out pecking order fast enough.

 

[dun]

I used the continuous pipe fence sections from Gobob

 

[Hippie Rancher]

I'm more worried bout the bulls fighting. Should I keep them seperate or will they work out pecking order fast enough.

if they are same age, size they may fight. if no in-heat cows are around, they should work it out pretty quick, but may wreck stuff shoving each other around. I wouldn't bother with separating, but then I wouldn't pen them either.

 

[Ky cowboy]

if they are same age, size they may fight. if no in-heat cows are around, they should work it out pretty quick, but may wreck stuff shoving each other around. I wouldn't bother with separating, but then I wouldn't pen them either.[/quote]

What would you do let them run with the cows year round

 

[wbvs58]

I find after the bit of initial putting their heads together they mate up real well and enjoy each others company.
Ken

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

I have had success penning bulls together. They fight far less if they have enough room to get away from each other. It also is important that they not have to compete for food, water or shelter. One thing I always keep in mind when penning/pasturing bulls together is that it helps to have a boss man. There will be minor dust ups, but the dominate male will step in and break things up if it gets out of hand. Right now, I have 10 mature bulls all pastured together. They range in age from 3 to 6 /12. They have plenty of room and never have to shove to get to the bale ring or behind a wind break when it is shytty. Max is the oldest, biggest bull in the group and he puts up with no fooling around. He will watch for about 60 seconds, before he steps in and sends all offenders on their way. We also put a older (by a year or so) bull in the lots with developing young bulls to get them used to the drill. Again, the older bull keeps the peace and shows the youngins the ropes.

For the pen itself, we have given up and just gone to guard rail for our smaller bull pens. Not because they are intentionally hard on the fence, but they will rub and we sometimes get so much snow, the cattle are insulated from a hot fence. The mature bulls are pastured and the fence is just high tensile hot wire. The cows are not on the home farm when there is green grass, so the bulls have little reason to wander.

 

[Bigfoot]

I usually keep 4 bulls. They are only together a few months of the year. Once they get it sorted out, there fine. Electric is all that will hold mine.

 

[Randi]

Our bulls run together in the off season. That would be about 10 months of the year. 7 bulls together, ranging in age from 2 to 4 years old at the moment. They have about 160 acres this year, but most years they are on about 5 acres.

 

[Bigfoot]

I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but why are some of us not running Bulls with bred cows? If a cow comes open, it's probably going to be sold anyway. Leaving the bull in, you at least have a bred cow to sell. I only pull mine, so I'm not calving in the dead of winter.

 

[Randi]

I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but why are some of us not running Bulls with bred cows? If a cow comes open, it's probably going to be sold anyway. Leaving the bull in, you at least have a bred cow to sell. I only pull mine, so I'm not calving in the dead of winter.

We have a designated calving season. Bulls go in June 1 and are pulled July 20 or thereabouts. Several reasons for this...
1. We get WINTER, calving when it is -30 is really not that much fun, and we can get that in March, but at least in March you're not expecting 3 or 4 months of it.
2. Big calves at weaning time.
3. We pasture almost all of our cattle away from home. Cows are between 1/2 and 2 hours away. Cows go to pasture in Late April or early May. I'm not much on sending heavily pregnant animals away from home.
4. Fertility.... If a cow can't get bred in our 60 day window (and it's my experience that late calving cows tend to stay late calving cows.) Then we really don't need to keep her around. Once we're done calving season, we don't have to watch them nearly as close.
5. In our country, not many people are interested in buying those June - Oct calving cows. Chances are she's not going to bring much more than slaughter price anyways. Plus, by pulling bulls in Mid July we can preg check by mid Sept and sell open cows and heifers before the market drops off too much.

 

[JSCATTLE]

I keep 2 bulls together on about a half acre 6 months out of the year .. They don't fight much. But they were both raised with 30 or 40 other bulls. So that may have something to do with it .

 

[Till-Hill]

I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but why are some of us not running Bulls with bred cows? If a cow comes open, it's probably going to be sold anyway. Leaving the bull in, you at least have a bred cow to sell. I only pull mine, so I'm not calving in the dead of winter.

We have a designated calving season. Bulls go in June 1 and are pulled July 20 or thereabouts. Several reasons for this...
1. We get WINTER, calving when it is -30 is really not that much fun, and we can get that in March, but at least in March you're not expecting 3 or 4 months of it.
2. Big calves at weaning time.
3. We pasture almost all of our cattle away from home. Cows are between 1/2 and 2 hours away. Cows go to pasture in Late April or early May. I'm not much on sending heavily pregnant animals away from home.
4. Fertility.... If a cow can't get bred in our 60 day window (and it's my experience that late calving cows tend to stay late calving cows.) Then we really don't need to keep her around. Once we're done calving season, we don't have to watch them nearly as close.
5. In our country, not many people are interested in buying those June - Oct calving cows. Chances are she's not going to bring much more than slaughter price anyways. Plus, by pulling bulls in Mid July we can preg check by mid Sept and sell open cows and heifers before the market drops off too much.

What you said! Late calving cows do no one any good. Every time a cow leaves the herd it should make the average better. I miss a few cows we sold as opens but I know people some day will respect our culling.

 

[Ky cowboy]

I figured to use woven wire with HOT wire probably 3 strands. Thanks for all the advise

 

[J&D Cattle]

I would put them together, they'll work it out. Single strand electric holds my two in. I've not run cattle right up against them but have had them as close as 50 yards or so to cows with no problems.

 

[dun]

I would put them together, they'll work it out. Single strand electric holds my two in. I've not run cattle right up against them but have had them as close as 50 yards or so to cows with no problems.

If the bulls are trained to hot wire and the hot wire is in fact HOT, a single starnd will hold most of them. The neighbor had a copule of hot heifers come over to visit our bull a copule of years ago. They were on one side of the hot wire and he was on the other. Even with them humping and riding he never got closer then 20 feet of the wire. Bellered his fool head off and paced and snorted, but that was all.

 

[Ky cowboy]

The field is already fenced with woven wire and I should have enough left to do it and I've already got enough electric wire to do it. Wanting to build a small shelter also maybe 20x30 something to put a bale in for them and to get out of the weather

 

[angus9259]

I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but why are some of us not running Bulls with bred cows? If a cow comes open, it's probably going to be sold anyway. Leaving the bull in, you at least have a bred cow to sell. I only pull mine, so I'm not calving in the dead of winter.

We have a designated calving season. Bulls go in June 1 and are pulled July 20 or thereabouts. Several reasons for this...
1. We get WINTER, calving when it is -30 is really not that much fun, and we can get that in March, but at least in March you're not expecting 3 or 4 months of it.
2. Big calves at weaning time.
3. We pasture almost all of our cattle away from home. Cows are between 1/2 and 2 hours away. Cows go to pasture in Late April or early May. I'm not much on sending heavily pregnant animals away from home.
4. Fertility.... If a cow can't get bred in our 60 day window (and it's my experience that late calving cows tend to stay late calving cows.) Then we really don't need to keep her around. Once we're done calving season, we don't have to watch them nearly as close.
5. In our country, not many people are interested in buying those June - Oct calving cows. Chances are she's not going to bring much more than slaughter price anyways. Plus, by pulling bulls in Mid July we can preg check by mid Sept and sell open cows and heifers before the market drops off too much.

What you said! Late calving cows do no one any good. Every time a cow leaves the herd it should make the average better. I miss a few cows we sold as opens but I know people some day will respect our culling.

I think we're missing the point of the question. Bigfoot is wondering why only leave bulls in for a breeding season and not pull them just for calving season (which is what I do). Bigfoot is not suggesting we have late calves - you still preg check at a certain date and anyone not bred in your window is still culled. However, then it has a chance of being culled as a bred cow and sold that way as opposed to just slaughter. Then pull the bulls for a couple months when calving starts to make sure next year's calves don't come too early.

 

[Randi]

We have a designated calving season. Bulls go in June 1 and are pulled July 20 or thereabouts. Several reasons for this...
1. We get WINTER, calving when it is -30 is really not that much fun, and we can get that in March, but at least in March you're not expecting 3 or 4 months of it.
2. Big calves at weaning time.
3. We pasture almost all of our cattle away from home. Cows are between 1/2 and 2 hours away. Cows go to pasture in Late April or early May. I'm not much on sending heavily pregnant animals away from home.
4. Fertility.... If a cow can't get bred in our 60 day window (and it's my experience that late calving cows tend to stay late calving cows.) Then we really don't need to keep her around. Once we're done calving season, we don't have to watch them nearly as close.
5. In our country, not many people are interested in buying those June - Oct calving cows. Chances are she's not going to bring much more than slaughter price anyways. Plus, by pulling bulls in Mid July we can preg check by mid Sept and sell open cows and heifers before the market drops off too much.

What you said! Late calving cows do no one any good. Every time a cow leaves the herd it should make the average better. I miss a few cows we sold as opens but I know people some day will respect our culling.

I think we're missing the point of the question. Bigfoot is wondering why only leave bulls in for a breeding season and not pull them just for calving season (which is what I do). Bigfoot is not suggesting we have late calves - you still preg check at a certain date and anyone not bred in your window is still culled. However, then it has a chance of being culled as a bred cow and sold that way as opposed to just slaughter. Then pull the bulls for a couple months when calving starts to make sure next year's calves don't come too early.

I think I covered that with my #5 point.