BULL INJURED HIS BUSINESS PARTS

[mncowboy]

Maybe its me but it seems its always your prized animal that either gets him or herself into trouble or just flat out has bad luck. Found my 2 year old bull had some how injured his penis, its hanging out 4-5 inches and is swelled up to the size of a medium potato. He's always had a tendancy to have it hanging out partially when its warm out so I dont know if he hooked it on something and it became infected or if he was mounted on a cow and the 3 year old bull knocked him off or what. I've treated him with LA200, draxon and presili (?) to help with the swelling and discomfort that I received from the local vet. I've moved him home, showered him with fly spray and his injury with 1% iodine. Hoping to be able to salvage him to be used the following year but in the mean time I guess i'm bull shopping. Not exactly a great time of year for that, I assume everything has been picked over. He and the 3 year old were with the cows for maybe 5 weeks. The 3 year old is still out there with 50+- cows, anyone have an opinion if he could finish by himself or will it be too many for him? This year we calved roughly 80 and it took 75-85 days start to finish.

 

[Katpau]

I wish I could say the chances of recovery are good, but my own experience with this has not been positive. I have had to butcher two 2 year old bulls with this same injury. The first we tried to save but things went downhill fast. the second had so much swelling by day 3 we also had to butcher. We found he was infected way up high and things were moving fast. Lucky we butchered him when we did. Another day or two and and he likely would have died. I have heard of others that have recovered, but my Vet claimed if it is hanging out exposed to the air it will do serious damage. In my case the bulls had been in only two weeks, but the other bull was able to breed all of the cows without problems. I also had about 50 with the remaining 3 year old bull. I left them in 10 weeks rather than the normal 8, but it turned out that would not have been necessary. The first bull had gotten enough in the first two weeks, and the backup only had to get about a third of them. If your bull was already in 5 weeks, I would expect most should already be bred. I would say at least 80% to 90% of my calves arrive within the first month. There should be very few still open, and one bull should be plenty.

Many polled bulls are known to have a weak retractor muscle. You will see it hanging out much of the time. I have learned to avoid this like the plague. When I see a bull whose penis hangs out whenever he relaxes, I will not buy him. I wish I had not been stupid enough to let it happen twice, but I will never make excuses for a bull who has this problem again.

 

[Son of Butch]

After 35 days well over half of the herd should already be pg.
A 3 yr old bull in good condition should have no trouble finishing the job within the next 45-50 days.

 

[Jessica06]

One bull with that many cows makes me nervous! But only from the risk that he could go bad. If he had a really good BSE, is in good shape, and works pretty hard, I would think that he could get the job done. I'm assuming that you have a 90 day season, which is what we do. If he's got 55 days left, and between the two, got 15-20 bred so far, that's only 40 or so to cover and over 2 heat cycles to do it in. I guess another thing to take into account is that if you throw a new bull in there they might injure themselves and/or waste time fighting over cows. That's a tough one...definitely one of those risk vs. reward kind of decisions. I would probably go ahead and look around to see what is out there in the way of bulls, just in case. If you found a decent bull cheap enough, you could throw him out there just as insurance, knowing that he most likely won't get much bred. Something small/young enough to not really pose as a challenge to the 3 year old. IF you were really worried about the other not being able to get the job done.

 

[milkmaid]

Do you know what % of your herd calved in the first 21-30 days of the last calving season? That may give you a better idea of what % are likely to be pregnant now...

 

[Aaron]

Really wish you hadn't treated him. Should have sent him to the sales barn. At the price of culls and calves on the ground, no one can be screwing around with down bulls in the peak of breeding season.

Reminds me of a fellow to the north of me that bought a gay bull last year, all tested and ready to go, never paid any attention to him, never preg-checked anything last fall and was wondering why his 30 heifers never calved this spring. :dunce:

 

[cowgirl8]

This happened about a month ago to one of our new bulls. We immediately took him to our vet where he spent 3 days there, then 2 weeks in the corral. Went in for a second checkup and he was back out working. Last year his buddy did the same, but worse. Ended up not working the rest of the season and had to be circumcised..
Since these LBW heifer angus came from the same breeder, i asked the vet if this was somehow an inherited defect. He said it can be. He said the skin on their penis is maybe looser due their genetics. Talked with the breeder and he said to take the bull to the sale and what we get for him he'll sell us another bull. But we like the bull, he gets along with his buddy so we hate to separate them.
I'd say if you really like the bull take him to the vet and see if he's savable.
Here is what the bull this year looked like. I know i have another picture of the other, but would have to dig deep to find it.

 

[NWMoAngus]

The rule of thumb is whenever a bull injures any part of his reproductive system, get wheels under him as soon as you can. They will go downhill fast, lose weight and salvage value. You can not repair a broken tool. Infections usually take too long to treat and result in a sterile bull anyway. Start looking for a replacement now to cover open cows and cows that might abort. Better to spend money on a new bull now, than feed open cows this winter.

 

[bigbull338]

if that injury is his equipment.then theres no need in shooting the meds to him.as must bulls wont heal from that injury.he shouldve been hauled to the sale barn right off.

 

[KNERSIE]

Let the three year old get the job done on his own, he should be able to without a problem. I'll just echo the rest, if it's a broken penis, it's rarely worth your while to spend any money on such a bull.

 

[cowgirl8]

I would take him to the vet and let the vet advise. We kept our bulls and they are doing just fine. But it the vet told us to sell, i would have followed his advice. Technically you have to hold onto him for the recommended times since you've medicated. You might as well have a vet look at him, no sense in letting him suffer with an injury that can be easily fixed if its like what our bulls did. The vet can at least push it back up and put a sleeve on it to hold it in so that it doesnt keep festering..

 

[mncowboy]

I would take him to the vet and let the vet advise. We kept our bulls and they are doing just fine. But it the vet told us to sell, i would have followed his advice. Technically you have to hold onto him for the recommended times since you've medicated. You might as well have a vet look at him, no sense in letting him suffer with an injury that can be easily fixed if its like what our bulls did. The vet can at least push it back up and put a sleeve on it to hold it in so that it doesnt keep festering..

LIke you said I'm already into this for 30 days so we'll see what the vet can or cant do.

 

[Lucky_P]

Sounds like a preputial laceration/rupture. Bulls don't generally have their PENIS hanging out - but polled bulls lack, or have diminished development/function of the retractor prepuce muscles, so they often prolapse some preputial tissue - which can then get lacerated, stepped on, or otherwise damaged. Some are worse than others about 'letting it all hang out'.
I grew up at 'Bull Pecker Central' - Auburn Univ. College of Vet Med back in the 1980s was where all the big-name Beefmaster & Gert bulls in The South with penile/preputial problems went. Spent most of the time on my Beef rotation wrapping peckers - mostly preputial lacerations/ruptures.

Outcome will likely be better if you had this bull to a facility where they could clean and wrap that thing - sometimes they just keep getting worse, if it's so swollen that he can't pull it back in, and you can get abscesses and adhesions that will essentially render him unable to service cows. Commercial bull, I don't know but that I'd send him on to slaughter, but if he's valuable, he might be worth the $$$ to treat - but even with best care, some don't recover.

 

[Nesikep]

It's a tossup with this, but now that he's had LA200, you might as well see what can be done... If the vet can get it cleaned and put back in place, that will go a long way, but as Lucky_P said, abscesses and adhesions are likely, which will cause him to be crooked.

Oh, and that 3 year old should not have a problem cleaning up... if a cow's in heat, she's probably going to go to him, or make it evident enough he'll figure it out. I was told you should always have an odd number of bulls in a herd anyhow, so while 2 fight the 3rd breeds

 

[mncowboy]

Thanks for all the replies, I found a bull that I thought was a reasonable price so I've replaced the injured bull with the new bull. We'll see how he does over the next 30 days, otherwise I'm going to wash my hands of him.
Thanks again

 

[mncowboy]

http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/mncow ... 6.jpg.html

New bull

 

[mncowboy]

Finally got it to work.

 

[Nesikep]

I wouldn't call it new.. .it's all dirty!

Hope he does the job for you