"Bull Holes"

[MikeC]

Spent the day yesterday repairing holes in the ground made by bulls. So deep I had to go around them with the disk and then push dirt in them with the loader. Couldn't find the old dirt.

Wound up plowing the whole pasture.

What mystified me was how perfectly round they were. Does anyone have bulls that dig square, oval or triangle shaped holes?

A neighbor dropped by just as I was finishing and suggested covering the entire pasture with mesh wire.

We thought about, laughed about it, and forgot about it.

Seriously
I think I'll have a couple of 20 yard dump truck loads of dirt delivered and dumped in a pile next year. Supposed to be way to eliminate the hole digging.

Right or wrong?

 

[alabama]

Have you ever hit one while on the tractor and not looking. Them things can be deadly. And where does the dirt go?

 

[ollie']

I fill mine in with a loader and top soil. One hole held 4 buckets of dirt and it's still not level.

 

[HOSS]

Fortunatley my bull don't dig holes. Too lazy I guess. He spends his time checking the ladies, sleeping and eating, and eating, and eating and eating some more. He is just not the nervous, frustrated type. My neighbors bull digs basements. Caused quite a bit of erosion in one spot on the lee side of a hill too.

 

[SEC]

I believe it's a indication of being territorial. Good bulls make good holes. Even funnier when bull calves do it!

 

[lazy ace]

Why don't you try tying up a leg on them like a horse! ;-) We'll see how talented they are on three legs. :lol: Our bulls dig but not to bad.

have a cold one

lazy ace

 

[Caustic Burno]

Thats just what bulls do dig holes you could loose an M1 tank in blow snot and beller.

 

[Schnurrbart]

Mine doesn't do much in the way of digging but he did something that was both funny and troublesome a couple of weeks ago. I cut through the pasture where he was with a round bale on the tractor. He chased me and attacked the bale for over a quarter of a mile. I finally lost him when I went around the barn and past the heifer pen and up into another pasture. He got distracted by the heifers. Still I had to wait about 15 minutes for him to get bored and go back out where he was before I came through with the hay. Needless to say, I only had about a half of a bale left on the spear.

 

[alabama]

When he hits his head in the sharp point on that thing he will slow down. I have had them knock the roll off the hay fork and roll it around the pasture untill they get either hungry or tired.
Bulls will be bulls. They will tear up anything you leave in the pasture with a herd of yearling bulls.

 

[Kent]

My Hereford bull rubs his head in deserted fire ant hills. He smells of the hill first, and if it has ants in it, he will move on to another one until he finds one with no ants. Those hills are the beginnings of his holes. He digs them out and rubs dirt/mud on his head until the hole reaches a certain size, then he'll start a new one nearby.

 

[Cowboymom]

Bulls will rub or dig anywhere. I don't really know how to stop them or if it is possible. I notice that if they have trees or posts in the pastures, they rub more than dig. Think it has something to do with insects. We the flies off of them and they don't dig much. I know that some areas that isn't possible.

We live on the San Andreas Fault. One time one of the geologists asked if he could put a cement box next to the fence in our herd bull field. We told him sure but the bulls will rub on it. He didn't think they could move it because it was heavy. Because they were putting thousands of dollars worth of equipment in it, they put it up empty first. The bulls lined up and rubbed on it all day long. Much to their surprise, the bulls moved it about twenty feet before they came back. They built a wood fence around it and the bulls loved to rub on the corner posts. I don't know how many bushes and trees we have had uprooted in our yard from a herd bull getting out and going for a walkabout.

I think bulls just have a big case of the "itchies"! I would hate to put wire mesh in there and get them tangled up in that.

 

[Proverbs 12:10]

My longhorn bull gets enjoyment out of hooking his horns under things left in the pasture and turning them over: feed bins, mineral tubs, 4 wheelers, go-carts, etc.

 

[Ned Jr.]

There's a hole in the field I keep my yearling bulls in thru the winter. Every evening around sundown it's PARTY TIME and they head for their hole. They are fun to watch. The game seems to be the one in the hole is the challenger and the others try to get him out, kind of like king of the hole. It's almost impossible to chase them from it when they start.

 

[IluvABbeef]

I see a lot of the steers liking to get down and rubbing, and they make quite a few "holes" as you call them...I counted about 5 or 6 "bull pits" in total in just one pasture.

And there ain't a single bull in the herd.

 

[denoginnizer]

My bulls dont seem to be pleased until they have a good bit of the dirt caked on there faces.

 

[HOSS]

Mine doesn't do much in the way of digging but he did something that was both funny and troublesome a couple of weeks ago. I cut through the pasture where he was with a round bale on the tractor. He chased me and attacked the bale for over a quarter of a mile. I finally lost him when I went around the barn and past the heifer pen and up into another pasture. He got distracted by the heifers. Still I had to wait about 15 minutes for him to get bored and go back out where he was before I came through with the hay. Needless to say, I only had about a half of a bale left on the spear.

This is one thing my bull does do. He wears the hay bales out pretty good as I go through the pasture with one on the tractor. I sometimes use a little Ford 3910 and he nearly scoots the tractor forward with both the hay bale and my big butt on board. He likes to hem the smaller bull up in the lower edge of the pond. Pushes him in and stands guard. When the smaller bull tries to get out he pushes him back in. They will do this for 20 minutes or so and then the bigger bull gets bored and walks off to eat and eat some more. Dang thing burns more calories doing nothing then anything I have ever seen. I need to get him on 50 cows so that I will break even on his feed bill. :lol:

 

[warpaint]

My longhorn bull gets enjoyment out of hooking his horns under things left in the pasture and turning them over: feed bins, mineral tubs, 4 wheelers, go-carts, etc.

Borrowed a bull from Rustler, last season. He was always hooking the feed bunks, almost to the point of destroying them. Once, he had hooked a bunk, flipped it over his back, and walked around like a turtle for about 20 minutes. :lol:

Finally went to a feed store that was going out of business and bought a plastic 55 gal. drum for $5.00, put some rocks in it to make noise, and threw it in the pasture with him.
He would spend an hour or so at hte time playing with that drum. But, he did leave the bunks alone.

 

[certherfbeef]

We have (had) the wirly gig type mineral feeders. They are up on legs with a plastic pan in the and a wind vain that is supposed to spin around with the wind and keep the rain out of the mineral.

Over the years we have welded and re-welded to no avail. The bulls and a few cows have come near to destroying them.
Last winter the HH bull had just the right amount of curve on the horns to get them stuck inside that mineral pan. He took off with it and I still havn't found the blasted pan. :roll:

In the winter we unroll the hay down the hillside. The bulls will stand halfway down the hill and wait on the bale. When they hit the bale it goes airborn and quits unrolling. Then they catch up with it and finish tearing it up.

If he is messing with the bales he is leaving other thiings alone...like the mineral feeders.

The HH bull also likes to torment the groundhogs. He will come near to wallering out a groundhog hole in a few days time. Funny to watch, then I remove the groundhog the next day when he can't find another hole fast enough.

 

[dun]

Got an old cow that does it, but she only does it in the summer. Alwasy goes back to the same spot or if she's been moved to another pasture goes back to a previous spot. She does it to trow dirt onto her belly to chase off the flys.

dun

 

[Caustic Burno]

My longhorn bull gets enjoyment out of hooking his horns under things left in the pasture and turning them over: feed bins, mineral tubs, 4 wheelers, go-carts, etc.

Borrowed a bull from Rustler, last season. He was always hooking the feed bunks, almost to the point of destroying them. Once, he had hooked a bunk, flipped it over his back, and walked around like a turtle for about 20 minutes. :lol:

Finally went to a feed store that was going out of business and bought a plastic 55 gal. drum for $5.00, put some rocks in it to make noise, and threw it in the pasture with him.
He would spend an hour or so at hte time playing with that drum. But, he did leave the bunks alone.

The thought never crossed my mind to make a rattle toy for any of the cows. :shock: