Copeman,
Long story short on the # of bulls is that Honey and I used to have 230 cows in our individual herds until financial difficulty due to BSE here in Canada caused us to have to sell back a fair number of cows in order to purchase feed and pay bills.
Hung onto the bulls because it's always better to have some spares (footrot, etc.) than trying to find a decent bull part way through the breeding season. Plus this way we can sell the extra two privately to people that will use them, rather than sending a breeding bull in prime condition to the mart to be turned into balogna. Right now we're using them while they're here.
All the pairs were in the forty acre field because that's where we were feeding them until the grass came enough to push them out onto a few quarter sections of our hayfields (due to drought there's a feed shortage and due to BSE a money shortage to buy more feed, so have to feed the cattle this way till we can turn them out in the community pasture).
We personally haven't had any injured bulls, and our summer grass is shared with several other pasture members who run our individual herds together in the pasture. In my section of the pasture, we've enough grass for allotted 231 cow/calf pairs, even in dry years. Each producer figures on at least one bull per 33 head of cows. The pasture is divided into five seperate large areas, each with a similar allotment. Each section is crossfenced into grazing management units. Ends up being quite a few head, but have yet to here anyone complaining about bulls being crippled due to fighting over cows in heat.
I guess by the sounds of other folks posts that they haven't been as fortunate.
Anyway, off to bed. Early a.m. for this girl.
Take care.