Bulls

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Rod

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This touches on an earlier topic but I'll ask it again anyway. I have increased my heard on one of my 160 acre farms and I have it cross fenced into a 40 acre pasture and a 120 acre pasture. I planned on running my young angus bull with my 10 heifers and 10 smaller framed cows on the smaller side and putting the new 4 year old angus bull I just bought on the bigger side with 29 cows. The point is they just about tore one of my fences down trying to get at one another. My two year old has had the place all to himself and was not happy when big boy unloaded. Would it be better to just put them all together and save my fences or just try and keep them seperated? I thought I was doing the right thing because my younger bull has the lower birth weights and secondly I didn't want them hurting each other or a calf .
 
We've always put the bulls together for a few days and let them sort things out for themselfs, then we seperate them. Most of the time the smaller bull is happy to have a few cows to call his own by then. But once in awhile you get a bull that would rather push/shove than take care of his business. ;-)
 
We have numerous pens, paddocks in our Seedstock operation. Small pastures and other pen areas are separated by 14' wide alleyways. Have never had a bull-to-bull problem since they can't touch or sniff each other and open females with a given bull are still separated by the alley. Weaned bull calves are similarly separated from weaned heifers. More expensive setup this way; however, no torn fence problems or wrong bull getting to wrong heifer or cow.
 
Rod":11ioz5tx said:
This touches on an earlier topic but I'll ask it again anyway. I have increased my heard on one of my 160 acre farms and I have it cross fenced into a 40 acre pasture and a 120 acre pasture. I planned on running my young angus bull with my 10 heifers and 10 smaller framed cows on the smaller side and putting the new 4 year old angus bull I just bought on the bigger side with 29 cows. The point is they just about tore one of my fences down trying to get at one another. My two year old has had the place all to himself and was not happy when big boy unloaded. Would it be better to just put them all together and save my fences or just try and keep them seperated? I thought I was doing the right thing because my younger bull has the lower birth weights and secondly I didn't want them hurting each other or a calf .

There's always the danger of one getting hurt in a fight, stepping in a hole and twisting an ankle or even breaking a leg. Generally, the younger one will not fight too long; he'll be submissive to the older bull. We had a rather remote lease pasture once that we ran two Angus bulls the same age with cows. It seemed every time we went to check the cows, the bulls would be locked up, fighting. But the cows all got bred, so they took time off to get their work done. If there's a big difference in their size, I'd try to keep them separated. Could you put a hot wire up so they won't get up to the fence?
 
That may not be a bad idea Frankie, i had to put them all together today to seperate some heifers and they fought like he__ all day. About the time I thought the younger one had learned his lesson he would be the one to start things up again. I would really like things alot better if they were seperated.
 
The only thing I have found to work on a single fence is 6000 volts two strands on each side. TSC has a cheap model called yellowjacket that works well on a 12 volt battery. One of the bulls has to be dominant and until the pecking order is established, they are going to fight. You might have the bad luck to of buying a fighter. I had to sell the best herd bull I owned because of fighting whipped all the neighbors and my other bulls. Nothing I tried ever stopped him but the sale barn.
 
Rod":37ikbwm1 said:
That may not be a bad idea Frankie, i had to put them all together today to seperate some heifers and they fought like he__ all day. About the time I thought the younger one had learned his lesson he would be the one to start things up again. I would really like things alot better if they were seperated.

It worked on our young Longhorn gomer bull. He was climbing through a good 6-strand barbwire fence whenever he wanted. We set a hot wire about a foot inside the barbwire fence and it kept him off the fence. Good luck....
 
Is there any value in using a solar fence charger? There was one on the farm I bought but it doesn't have enough juice to stop a child. Do I not have it grounded or hooked up correct?
 
We use a solar charger for remote pastures, it only puts out 75k volts. The key to a good powered fence is the ground. Get a tester the displays the voltage and not just a little light that shows on or off.
The attached site has good information on powered fencing
http://gallagherusa.com/

dun

john":lj50gb9m said:
Is there any value in using a solar fence charger? There was one on the farm I bought but it doesn't have enough juice to stop a child. Do I not have it grounded or hooked up correct?
 
I have a gallager charger it works very well. I keep vergin heifers just across the fence from my herd bulls. Ikeep the top strand and the third strand of six insulated from my steel post and energize them.I also connect the remaining wires to the ground side of my fence charger back at the barn. My 2.5 joule charger will create about a 3/8 inch blue flame when you get into it even in the driest time of the year on the back side of the 40 acer trap. The secrete is that the electricity is trying to go back to ground and on my fence that is always as close as the next steel post.
Nothing ever touches it including the neighbors that have the utmost respect if they have ever touched it before. It will literally stun you when you get shocked.
 
Nothing any better than to watch big blue arc coming out of a grasshoppers head stuck in an insulator at dusk. Kind of makes me wistful for summer.
 
We learned the hard way about putting two bulls together.. one older and one younger. The older one was dominant, but it didn't stop the younger one from constantly "testing" the older one. Eventually he got the older bull in a position where he got hurt. After a trip to A & M and X-rays, we shipped the younger bull. It was an expensive lesson.. we raise registered cattle, so we have a pretty substantial investment in a bull.

Now if we run two bulls, we separate them with hot wire.
 

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