Bulls breeding age.

[rmoran]

What's the age everybody recommends that a young bull needs to be before turned out with cows? What are some of the cons in turning them out too early?

 

[dun]

We turn them out at 12-14 months as long as they have passed their BSE

 

[MRRherefords]

We had a bull that bred a cow at 10 months, but then again he has been the best bull that we have ever had.

 

[ClinchValley]

Turned ours out on 4/20 :mrgreen: . He was 14 months. Turned in to 15 cows and 9 heifers. All open. He's done pretty good as far as condition goes. Still growing, hasn't gone down much. Seems to be growing nicely still. Haven't seen much action with him lately. So maybe it took the first time on most. Time will tell.

I didn't realize this was such a common practice. It was necessity here.

 

[Rafter S]

A general rule of thumb that I've always heard is one cow for every month of the bull's age (18 cows for a 18 month old bull, etc.), from as soon as he'll pass a BSE until he's 2. Some will of course do better or worse, so your mileage may vary.

 

[SPH]

Rule of thumb most people go by for yearlings is 1 female per month of age so ideally 15 and no more than 20 is what we go by as depending on age and condition a yearling should be able to cover 20. Plus if you do any AI you may still run him with 20 or more as cleanup but he won't necessarily service them all either if a fair amount of your AI group settled to the AI service. I sure wouldn't run a 15 month old bull out with 25+ cows although I'm sure there are some that do without issue but it doesn't do the bull any favors while he's still growing and developing to give him such a heavy work load like that.

 

[rmoran]

So y'all think that a 18 month old registered angus bull should do ok with being turned out on 9 cows? Had a man tell me that if I put him out at 18 months it would stunt his growth.

 

[dun]

So y'all think that a 18 month old registered angus bull should do ok with being turned out on 9 cows? Had a man tell me that if I put him out at 18 months it would stunt his growth.

Old wives tail. As long as he is still growing and that depends on feed, he should be able to service 9 cows with no problem

 

[farmerjan]

We try to keep no more than 12-15 females with a young bull. Most are 15-18 months when we use them the first time and it is often with only 10-12 head. Try not to use too young a bull with older mature cows as they can be pretty mean to a young bull. Like them to not want to bully a young bull so fewer cows seems to be better for his "ego" too.
Stunting his growth is more from too many cows and not enough food to keep his condition up. If he is a bull that was getting alot of feed then he might lose some weight, but at 18 months he won't be stunted unless you are asking him to breed 20 hours a day. On 9 cows he ought to do just fine.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

So y'all think that a 18 month old registered angus bull should do ok with being turned out on 9 cows? Had a man tell me that if I put him out at 18 months it would stunt his growth.

That should not be a problem at all. An 18 month old should easily be able to cover 9 cows without having any negative impact on his growth.

 

[MRRherefords]

Ours was a nice size bull at 18 months and he covered all 10 of ours and then my grandfathers heifers too. He has put on more than 800 lbs. since then.