Cleft Testicles

[NeilsenFarm]

I agree on not seeing the bull mounting.

The only proof I have of the bull I borrowed last year is that I have 5 black calves from him

I never did see him mount a single one, but he got them all and they all calved pretty close together, so he was on top of it.

Thanks for this! That's what I was wondering but my vet seemed surprised to hear that I never saw this behavior. I have noticed that even the ladies have stopped mounting him, so I'm hoping maybe they're all bred. They're definitely fatter, but they're well feed. We've decided to hold off for now, I've ordered pregnancy tests for the heifers and we'll see.

 

[NeilsenFarm]

Are the cows still jumping him or is he chasing, herd, pushing on them in any way? Is he acting lazy, putting on weight, hanging out by himself more?

Since he was put out in March, he should be dang near be trying to hide from them if they are all bred.

Do you have a trailer?

If so, you should be able to load the bull and cows and get them fert tested/ preg checked.

If not, ask the vet if some one in the area helps load and haul cattle.

Are you saying you are looking at purchasing a squeeze chute right now? Is that some thing that yall can easily do or will it put yall in a bind?
Squeeze chutes are pretty expensive so you might consider paying some one to help haul them to the vet vs having the vet come to you facility.

I would not panic. Just start making a plan and work through it.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response!
We have noticed he's stayed standing off on his own, and they're not jumping on each other anymore. He's also been less keen to investigate anyone coming around the heifers (before he was always right there, pushing in).
We do have a small trailer, and yes we're in debt up to our eyeballs as we just literally bought the farm and all the surprise expenses that came with it. Talking it over, we are constructing our own corral in one side of the barn and were going to buy just a head gate i think used on Facebook. It should be enough that we can at least work them, take care of any needs that need administered etcetera.

 

[Brute 23]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response!
We have noticed he's stayed standing off on his own, and they're not jumping on each other anymore. He's also been less keen to investigate anyone coming around the heifers (before he was always right there, pushing in).
We do have a small trailer, and yes we're in debt up to our eyeballs as we just literally bought the farm and all the surprise expenses that came with it. Talking it over, we are constructing our own corral in one side of the barn and were going to buy just a head gate i think used on Facebook. It should be enough that we can at least work them, take care of any needs that need administered etcetera.

Im not a fan of just using a headgate at all. Most people just drop a headgate in a chute and it creates more problems than it solves. You have to put a slide gate on your chute a little over the length of a big cow so they can not move back and forth in your chute. Pipes and all that is bs. You want them to be standing and then slowly walk to the head gate. Fast moving cattle cause people to try to be quick and slam headgates which creates cattle that then don't want to go in to headgates and act a fool in the pens. Basically they create their own problems. The more gates the better when working cattle so that you can move them from compartment to compartment consistently and calmly.

To really set up a headgate right, you are not that far off the cost of a squeeze chute. I would definitely haul in to a vet before I had to use a bad set up with a head gate.

 

[NeilsenFarm]

Thank you!
Our vet works his own cattle and helped us work out what he thinks will work well. We're small, only 6 head to start, and they're pretty calm and well behaved, so I think we will manage them ok. At least I hope so. We did discuss putting multiple smaller slide gates along the "neck" of our corral up to the gate. It's going in our barn where we feed them, and they walk through the area already easily. I'm hoping if we get them trained to walk through the whole set up each time to come eat, there won't be any panic when we actually start using the head gate.

 

[Brute 23]

Thank you!
Our vet works his own cattle and helped us work out what he thinks will work well. We're small, only 6 head to start, and they're pretty calm and well behaved, so I think we will manage them ok. At least I hope so. We did discuss putting multiple smaller slide gates along the "neck" of our corral up to the gate. It's going in our barn where we feed them, and they walk through the area already easily. I'm hoping if we get them trained to walk through the whole set up each time to come eat, there won't be any panic when we actually start using the head gate.

Sounds like he's a good resource and yall have a plan.

We always like to hear follow ups on how it went.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Ideally, but we are all new to farming and have made a few mistakes. We didn't know we needed a head gate or chute, so that's in the works, so my vet can't do testing.
We're up against him being too large soon for our processor to accept, so we feel we're needing to make a decision in shorter time than we'd like. If this is heritable and his offspring shouldn't be bred, then we would process him. No sense in continuing bad genes. There's always a chance the heifers he's with are already pregnant so that's why there is no activity, but we won't know until we get our corral done and can check our until winter when they're dropping calves (we purchased this group as a package deal, they've been together since at least 8 months old).
So, rock and a hard place.... what would you do?

A bit about me. I am NOT a livestock producer. I am a Grazing Specialist that has interacted with over 350 (written plans, talked with many, many more) livestock producers.

From what I have seen on other operations, get rid of this bull now! His primary purpose is for breeding. If his ability to do that is compromised (it seems it is from more than one piece of evidence you have offered) he will be nothing but problems, even if his conformation is good otherwise. With his breeding ability compromised, you would never want to keep any of his offspring for breeding purposes, especially any bulls.

 

[M.Magis]

So far, there is zero evidence his breeding ability is compromised.