Buller bull?

[TCRanch]

Never have seen this before but one of bulls I bought in Feb (just turned 2 in Sept) is being ridden constantly by the cows. And I mean all the time by cows of all ages; it's like he's their prison wench. Some of them have been confirmed bred by our vet and I would pretty much guarantee the others are bred as well. He's not riding them, they aren't riding each other and the other bulls just stand there and watch the show.

I've read about buller steer syndrome but my herd is not in confinement, there are no implants and I wouldn't think it's a dominance issue (cows vs bulls?). He's purebred, registered, passed his BSE with flying colors and he's got game. He's pretty stout but some of my girls are enormous so I'm a little concerned about injury. Any other reason(s) I should be concerned?

 

[wbvs58]

Pretty boy.

Ken

 

[dun]

Several years ago we had a bull that bred about half the cows in the first 3 weeks then never settled another. When cows came in heat he would wander off by himslef and just lay around or avoid them when they tried to mount them. But this deal with your bull seems different. Either the cows are bullying him or just playing. Doesn;t make sense that he would stand still for that behavior unless he had a hormonal issue.

 

[TCRanch]

Pretty boy.

Ken

Well, he is good looking!

 

[TCRanch]

Several years ago we had a bull that bred about half the cows in the first 3 weeks then never settled another. When cows came in heat he would wander off by himslef and just lay around or avoid them when they tried to mount them. But this deal with your bull seems different. Either the cows are bullying him or just playing. Doesn;t make sense that he would stand still for that behavior unless he had a hormonal issue.

Hormonal issues seem to be part of the buller steer syndrome but largely due to implants. This issue is fairly recent. I used him as my heifers bull, moved that group to the central pasture about a month ago. Had a late calver go into heat and he was all over her, along with the other 2 bulls, and then status quo/nothing unusual. Some of my girls get a little randy towards/during their 3rd trimester but even this is bizarre. Maybe he's transitioning and I'll have to change his name to Caitlyn :shock:

 

[Ebenezer]

Read an article years ago that cattle will ride other cattle when the ridden animal's temp is up. Something they did not understand but the temps made the hormones do differently or the smells were different. Was especially helpful to know in groups of bulls when one was being ridden hard: pull, check and treat. But a guess.

 

[TCRanch]

Read an article years ago that cattle will ride other cattle when the ridden animal's temp is up. Something they did not understand but the temps made the hormones do differently or the smells were different. Was especially helpful to know in groups of bulls when one was being ridden hard: pull, check and treat. But a guess.

Thanks for the tip. Took his temp in the pasture and he decided he'd had enough before it beeped but was in quite a while and only registered 101.3 so I'm assuming it was a little higher but not much. No signs of sickness at all.

 

[BRYANT]

Have seen it and my ''Ol'' Hillbilly Grandpa always said that bulls got a fever. I don't know but he did know a lot about cattle.

 

[Ebenezer]

No signs of sickness at all.

Same thing in study. Treatment cleared it up and settled the issue.

 

[TCRanch]

No signs of sickness at all.

Same thing in study. Treatment cleared it up and settled the issue.

What were they treating? Just a fever and knocking it down with Banamine or did they assume it was pneumonia & treat with Draxxin, LA, Resflor Gold, etc?

 

[TCRanch]

Well I'll be darned! He just happened to be in the barnyard with the chute. Temp is normal. Took some heifers to the vet and asked what he thought was going on. He thought it sounded like a dominance issue among the cows and the reason it's fairly recent is because I've been culling pretty hard the past month, primarily older, bigger & dominant/aggressive cows. It's messed up their hierarchy and in lieu of fighting all the time (which they still do but not as much), they're showing their dominance/rank/whatever by hunching my young bull. He doesn't seem traumatized and I did catch one going after my head/alpha bull this afternoon. Is this really what's going on? Dunno. But it seems to make the most sense.