Disposition ad fertility in bulls

[Chocolate Cow2]

Not wanting to hi-jack the aggressive bull thread, so will start this one.
Has anyone noticed or thought about disposition of a bull and if it relates to fertility?
Is a docile bull less fertile?
Is an aggressive bull overly fertile or just an idiot?
Of course there's a happy medium. He can be fertile and mind his own business. I'm asking about the ones of either side of the bell curve. I've had bulls that like human attention and have wondered if they are less fertile, or less interested in breeding because they like to be scratched. Then the ones like the aggressive bull thread is discussing. He'll jump every fence in 4 counties to breed cows and attack anything/anyone who gets in his way.
With bulls, is docility antagonistic to fertility?

 

[holm25]

I doubt it. We had a bull who you could walk up to scratch and pet and do anything with. He could pass a BSE with flying colors and only ever had one open cow and she had cystic ovaries..

 

[Chocolate Cow2]

Really glad to hear that! We turned bulls out with fall cows yesterday and one checked every cow. He beller'd and pawed the dirt (mostly snow). He was the only one with this group of cows. Turned in another one with cows at a different location and he was totally indifferent. Last night, he was with the cows but laying down. Make me think about the difference in the two and if it could possibly relate to fertility.

 

[Son of Butch]

Select Sires line up has 42 Angus bulls with above breed average epd for Scrotal Circumference.
34 of them are above breed average for Docility and 8 are below average.

They also have 37 bulls with below average epd for Scrotal Circumference.
32 of the 37 are above average epd for Docility and 5 below average

Not a scientific sampling, but I'd say it appears there is no reason to believe a Docile bull is less fertile.

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

My most docile bulls (at this point, Max and Titan) are consistently very fertile. Both are now seniors (9 yrs and 8.5 yrs, respectively) and still produce AI quality semen. They are also two of the most masculine appearing bulls I have had.

 

[True Grit Farms]

I think disposition plays a major roll in getting the job done. But I can't see why there would be a difference in fertility. Lots of folks that have nothing to do but breed seem to be good at it.

 

[pdfangus]

Well at my place a docile bull is a lot more likely to be around to breed.

life is too short to deal with idiots of any kind.

 

[Son of Butch]

I think disposition plays a major roll in getting the job done.
But I can't see why there would be a difference in fertility.
Lots of folks that have nothing to do but breed seem to be good at it.

I thought the docility vs fertility a very good question.
In humans increased testosterone levels correlates with increased fertility.

A bit off topic, but increased testosterone also correlates with an increased likelihood of committing a crime,
especially aggressive or violent crimes.

Other factors: Crime among people of all races peaks with an IQ between 80-90.
Among Whites and particularly among White Women, individuals who self identify as liberal have higher than average
rates of nonviolent crime.

Deterrents: Abstaining from alcohol and illegal drugs.
In addition individuals who regularly attend religious services tend to have less involvement in all levels of crime
except for property damage.

 

[SPH]

Select Sires line up has 42 Angus bulls with above breed average epd for Scrotal Circumference.
34 of them are above breed average for Docility and 8 are below average.

They also have 37 bulls with below average epd for Scrotal Circumference.
32 of the 37 are above average epd for Docility and 5 below average

Not a scientific sampling, but I'd say it appears there is no reason to believe a Docile bull is less fertile.

I'm not an Angus guy but do use EPDs to an extent with selection process. How do they calculate the docility EPD for Angus? For scrotal I tend to put more faith behind the actual scrotal measurement than an EPD number. Never heard a guy complain about a bull having too big of nuts but I don't know how much to trust a scrotal EPD when you have and actual measurement to go by. Just looking through the Hereford bulls on Select Sires and there is a bull that had a 40cm yearling scrotal but a current scrotal EPD of 0.4 while the Hereford breed average is 0.9 which puts him in the bottom 10% of the breed for scrotal. Pretty sure most guys would find 40cm at yearling more than acceptable. Meanwhile another bull they have had a 36.7cm scrotal and a 1.4 EPD which puts him in the top 10% of the breed for EPD. Both are adequate to me for actual scrotal measurement but it's ironic how the bull with actual bigger nuts has a drastically different EPD than the one with slightly smaller. I realize all the animals in his pedigree figure into that EPD calculation too but at some point the actual measurement just like actual weights have to matter too.

In the end, a bull still needs to pass a BSE with flying colors regardless of his EPD. I realize we are in an age where we feel we have to quantify everything with numbers but there is still a lot of things that have to pass the eye test as well as common sense when it comes to selection. To me, it doesn't matter what the EPDs say if what you see with your own eyes doesn't match up with what it says on the registration paper. A couple weeks ago we were in the process of going through trying to pick out the top 3 or 4 bulls to keep intact and sell as yearlings in the spring. There is 1 bull in the group that probably has the best set of EPDs but will be getting cut because phenotypically he doesn't meet our expectations of what a bull should look like. I had a debate with dad when we were looking them over and he had his spreadsheet with him that had all their EPDs and actual weights including what they just weighed that day a couple months after we weaned them so we could see how they were gaining. I'm more critical about what I see with my eyes first and what actual weights or measurements are before I even dig into EPDs so I took the sheet away before he could start talking and asked him to look at the group from the eyes of a bull buyer who just walked into the lot for the first time and knows nothing about these bulls yet. From the ones we were considering keeping intact which bull stands out the most to him and which one is the bottom one. For the bottom bull he picks 1 I knew in advance he was in debate about keeping because of his EPDs so I then ask him why he is hesitating to cut him if he doesn't pass the eye test and he says "well he has probably the best EPDs of any bull in here." I then ask if we were buying a bull would he be able to overlook his phenotype downfalls just because he has good EPDs? Once I got his focus away from the EPDs for a bit and got him thinking like a bull buyer looking at things from a wider perspective I finally got him to move on from considering that bull and we were able to start picking at the rest of them that were worth looking at more and discussing.

 

[Nesikep]

My bull is a hell of a fighter against another bull, really keeps track of the cows, and is really gentle with me.. for what it's worth

 

[TwoByrdsMG]

[image]34[/image]

Anyone can walk into the pasture and pet this bull. He respects a fence and will not go through it even if heifers are in heat on the other side of it.

He has bred 26 cows/heifers that settled this year. 3 more he bred that did not settle. All three were first timers and only had one cycle with him. One of them turned out to be a free martin (neighbor borrowed him to breed his 2 heifers).

At 18 month he was getting thick curly hair on his neck and head but he was show clipped in this picture. Yearling scrotal was 33 cm.

 

[BFE]

I have a friend at a ranch in Kansas who has a old bull buyer who wants the wildest one they have. Buyer runs 80-90 cows, calves year around. He says the wild ones get them covered better. When asked about handling, the old man says he only sees the bull once a year at round up, and he's not worried about handling him, "that's what cowboys are for"!

As for me, I don't want a pet, I want him to respect me. I like for him to turn the other way when I'm within ten feet or so.

 

[SRBeef]

I recently had a related issue here with bulls. I've been straight Hereford but wanted to try another breed bull on my docile, older Hereford cow group to see if heterosis was worth trying.

Until recently I had another breed bull who sired F1 calves that were the best calves I've ever had. But this bull kept getting more and more aggressive as he aged, especially towards other members of my family. I finally had enough of his snorting, pawing the ground and almost charging and took him to the next slaughter sale.

Some would say he was a "range" bull. He definitely did not fit in my rotational grazing system. I may keep one or two of his F1 bull calves out of mellow Hereford cows as retained bull candidates next spring to see how they develop. Maybe 3/4 Hereford and 1/4 other breed calves will be the best of both worlds.

On the other hand, I have a Schu-Lar Tested grandson Hereford bull that is about as mellow a bull as you could ask for. He looks good, has great EPDs and sires nice calves. When I set out hay he comes over to check it out but is very deferential. He has no signs of aggressive behavior but gets the cows bred. This guy will be here a long time.

In the end in my birth to plate operation disposition is an absolute must. A bit of extra calf size is not worth the medical bills and threats to other family members. I believe you can find bulls that have both disposition and fertility, mainly by working with a good breeder.

 

[pdfangus]

Amen brother

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I would think diposition could have an effect on Libido. Most of the high strung, and aggressive bulls will screw everything in sight. While some of those docile bulls would rather sit in the shade.

 

[Nesikep]

I would think diposition could have an effect on Libido. Most of the high strung, and aggressive bulls will screw everything in sight. While some of those docile bulls would rather sit in the shade.

One of my most aggressive bulls.. well, yeah, he screwed everything in sight, but didn't know which end of the cow he was supposed to work with!.. Not too bright that one!
His son was a mean SOB too