Full-time or part-time bull

[herofan]

I'm sure this has been covered before, but for those of you who use a bull, do you let him run with the herd all the time or just turn him in for a period of time? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

For those of you who retain heifers, I assume you have more than one bull so daddy doesn't breed daughter. Is that correct?

 

[dun]

Just before calving season we pull the bull and put him with either a really late bred cow or a steer. I don;t want to be stumbling around in the dark with a flashlight and have the bull decide he needs to see waht's going on. We AI all our heifers and frequently second calvers too. We only keep a bull for 2 breeding seasons then sell him.

 

[Taurus]

We pulled bulls out on early September to prevent breeding heifer calves and widening the calving season as we want short calving season. Our bulls went to another farm to take a break from breeding season. Since we retained heifers, a bull is good for two years before his daughters are enough old to be bred then the bull is replaced by a bull thats not related to the heifers.

 

[jerry27150]

I put my bulls in 6-11, then when calves are about 6 months I take them out til I wean calves. then I put bulls back in so I can tell if any are not bred. then I leave them in til almost calving time. I split my herd in three groups for a month of early breeding then put all together, I am not afraid to breed good bulls to their daughters

 

[Rafter S]

I generally leave my bulls on the cows about nine months. I know a lot of experts recommend only leaving them for 90 days, but my calving season is earlier than many others, so if a cow doesn't calf within my three month window, there's a good chance she's still bred when I sell her, so she'll be worth more than if she was open.

But I don't usually leave them on year-round because I don't want early calves. I fooled around this year and didn't pull them. I like my season to start on November 1, but this year I had 8 calves on the ground by then at one pasture. I usually work all my calves in mid February, but because of those early calves this year I'm considering working those early calves in another week or two. They'd be pretty big by February.

 

[Aaron]

Bulls are in for 45-50 days for each spring and fall season, and in a secluded paddock for the remainder of the year. Keeps calving season tight so I am not worrying about some calf born out in the middle of nowhere in mid-summer or winter. Buyers like the uniform crop in a big bunch and pay a fair buck to own them, much more than if groups of two and three. Dad used to run a bull 365 days, 20 years ago, and the paycheck showed the results, not to mention the intensive workload. People don't believe me when I say that by tightening the season, we doubled our income on the same number of cows over a few years, 1994-1997, not to mention the drop in expenses involved with babying calves born at bad times of the year, and the enviable death loss. Much easier to manage time and workload (ie vaccinations) with tight calving seasons.

 

[herofan]

Bulls are in for 45-50 days for each spring and fall season, and in a secluded paddock for the remainder of the year. Keeps calving season tight so I am not worrying about some calf born out in the middle of nowhere in mid-summer or winter. Buyers like the uniform crop in a big bunch and pay a fair buck to own them, much more than if groups of two and three. Dad used to run a bull 365 days, 20 years ago, and the paycheck showed the results, not to mention the intensive workload. People don't believe me when I say that by tightening the season, we doubled our income on the same number of cows over a few years, 1994-1997, not to mention the drop in expenses involved with babying calves born at bad times of the year, and the enviable death loss. Much easier to manage time and workload (ie vaccinations) with tight calving seasons.

Wow! If you double your income by having a tight calving season, I can't argue with that. Do I understand correctly: the extra income comes from being able to manage calves better when you know they will be born during a certain time, which lowers death rate, and being able to deal with tasks, like vaccinations, in one session instead of scattered throughout the year?

 

[Aaron]

Bulls are in for 45-50 days for each spring and fall season, and in a secluded paddock for the remainder of the year. Keeps calving season tight so I am not worrying about some calf born out in the middle of nowhere in mid-summer or winter. Buyers like the uniform crop in a big bunch and pay a fair buck to own them, much more than if groups of two and three. Dad used to run a bull 365 days, 20 years ago, and the paycheck showed the results, not to mention the intensive workload. People don't believe me when I say that by tightening the season, we doubled our income on the same number of cows over a few years, 1994-1997, not to mention the drop in expenses involved with babying calves born at bad times of the year, and the enviable death loss. Much easier to manage time and workload (ie vaccinations) with tight calving seasons.

Wow! If you double your income by having a tight calving season, I can't argue with that. Do I understand correctly: the extra income comes from being able to manage calves better when you know they will be born during a certain time, which lowers death rate, and being able to deal with tasks, like vaccinations, in one session instead of scattered throughout the year?

A lot of money is made up in the uniform calf crop and marketing large groups of calves at once, rather than one here, two there, another 6 sometime else. I remember lots of single calves being sold and being docked upwards of $200 per head. On even 10 calves, that adds up to some coin. You can retain them and feed them larger, but when does your expenses and time, negate the effort? The lone steer is likely still going to go as a single later on and likely docked, so was anything gained?

I remember Dad had two steers he kept back in '94 that were born way out of season, both November or December. One small Hereford-shorthorn cross steer (can't remember his name, other than he was miserable) and a large Hereford-Holstein cross steer that we named Poncho, good natured. Anyways, being winter born, they were raised and weaned in our barn and I think fed the entire summer and following winter in the barn (can't remember if they ever were let outside). Markets were fluctuating a fair bit in the mid-90's and by the time we sold them at about 2 years of age, I think we got about double the value of what they would have been worth as 6 month old calves born in sync with a good portion of the herd. So we got about $400 per head more for 1 1/2 years work of daily watering and feeding, shovelling manure - talk about stupid.

I always look back at that example and just shake my head - no wonder we barely had a pot-to-p!ss in, with stupid management and marketing decisions like that. If I was going to continue in the operation, profit was going to be the name of the game, not the amount of pounds I can put on an animal.

 

[Lucky_P]

Bull is in for 60 days for Spring and Fall breeding seasons. Separated from herd for the remainder of the year, stays with the wife's horses - and when he's in with the cows, we separate weaned & yearling heifers from the herd.
Started using AI about 7 years ago, so the bull is primarily for 'cleanup' on any that don't stick to AI service, and a few that aren't worth bothering to AI. I'd use him on virgin heifers, but he's gotten so big that I don't trust that he wouldn't break them down or injure them, so at present, all heifers get only AI service - but have a young bull coming along who'll get the call for the heifers next spring. At 10, days are numbered for the old boy; this season may be his last hurrah.

We don't worry about him breeding his own daughters... that's mainly an issue of people applying human mores to animal breeding. If there are genetic defects in the mix, then yes, it's probably a bad idea...but for terminal calf production, not a concern...nobody's ever inquired as to what's the sire/grandsire of those black steers going through the sale ring.
Have only one or two cows in the herd that are the result of sire/daughter matings, despite the fact that the current bull has quite a few daughters in the herd. With decent AI conception rates, the old boy hasn't had much work to do for the past 6 years.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

My bulls stay in every day of the year. I like having calves as often as possible. any heifers I breed go in either may 1st or November 15th.

 

[Rafter S]

I forgot to answer the question about breeding heifers on my earlier answer. I do keep a bull just for heifers, but it's for calving ease, not because of any concern about breeding a bull to his daughters. I know a lot of people will disagree, and that's okay, but I keep a Longhorn to use on my heifers. For bulls on my mature cows I don't give a thought to calving ease.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I forgot to answer the question about breeding heifers on my earlier answer. I do keep a bull just for heifers, but it's for calving ease, not because of any concern about breeding a bull to his daughters. I know a lot of people will disagree, and that's okay, but I keep a Longhorn to use on my heifers. For bulls on my mature cows I don't give a thought to calving ease.

I've got a friend that uses a corriente on all his heifers. He Sold 40 calves Thursday that were out of that bull and red angus and Charolais heifers. All Weighed around 600lbs and sold right with the like colered calves out of regular bulls.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

We calve in the fall and spring, so our bulls just get moved from one pasture to another and stay for six months. They get moved on June 1st and. New Year's Day.

 

[redcowsrule33]

Our bulls are in for 60 days, get pulled until preg check and then winter with the cows until calving. This year I have a few fall calvers we need to morph into spring calving, so there will need to be some shuffling of animals since we only have 2 pens with a heated waterer. I believe I got the fall calvers to keep my life more complicated than it needs to be. :?

 

[lucky7chief]

We are similar to hillbilly beef man. The bulls get moved between herds every 6 months. I don't want to keep bulls in a separate pasture. We preg check to identify late breeders to sell. She's worth more as a late bred cow than an open cow.

 

[Nesikep]

I work it a lot like Dun, with the exception of not AIing heifers. The bull is turned out with the cows May 25th for a beginning of march calving season start. If you preg check your cows in the fall, I think leaving him in for 45-60 days is fine, however, if you don't preg check, you're still better off with a late calf than none at all and having fed the cow through the winter (as lucky7chief just said). Our bull stays with the cows up until the beginning of calving season, when he gets put with steers or a late cow.

We will breed a bull to his daughter without a second though, though the resulting daughters are *typically* not retained.. We've made 2 exceptions to that when the 3/4 daughters were just too darned nice to let go.. One is now a long yearling and the other is just getting weaned, both are doing very well and are from great cows. We do have another bull to breed them to however.

A uniform calf crop is important for sale barn stock, when you get a nice bunch of steers that all look the same, you do get better prices, though around here I haven't noticed the $ differences Aaron mentioned, but a $.10 to .15 per lb less is certainly possible for 'singles'. If you market outside of the sale barn, uniformity will only matter to you.. In some cases when selling freezer beef it is nice to have a few different sizes so they'll finish at different times, but you may also want to do all the butchering and slaughtering at the same time... This is something only you can decide.

 

[bmoore87]

Think it depends on you situation if you have time or a pasture close to your house and want to do it go ahead. I notice we do gain a couple percent in conception rates calving most of the year, but even with checking those pastures once or twice a day I rarely save a calf that I have to pull while in the spring I rarely loose one that I pull. Add to that the other difficulties and expenses such as fuel, not being able to vaccinate at correct times, maggots and that when something goes wrong you have to take what you need to the cattle to fix it. We are moving away from the continous and are shrinking down our windows to 70-80 in spring and 60-70 in fall.

Like Aaron said their is a premium in uniformity that is something else to factor. We recently sold our spring steers and the guy who bought them said that if we didn't have those smaller late calves in there he would have bought them right away and paid more even though he knew he would be able to sort.

 

[Dave]

My bulls go in with the heifers in early May and pulled in 60 days. Most bulls only get to stay 2 years. Three at the most. So most of the time when I pull them one goes to town. The other goes to a guy up the valley who only has a couple cows. He keeps him until late October when I haul him to a paying customer until late January. From January to May he is in a pen with a steer to keep him company.
About 20% of the heifers I buy turn out to be bred. Those are spring calves that get bred in Sept/Oct. Lots of people don't pull their bulls. One of the reasons that buyers pay less for heifers.

 

[Lucky_P]

Small closed herd, now at~ 75 females, split Spring/Fall calving seasons. Have been using AI since 2007; as a result, current walking herdsire is coming 10, and has daughters in the herd ranging from 3 months to nearly 8 years of age. Only have one cow in the herd that's the result of a sire/daughter mating by him. Might be one or two calves that are grandsire/granddaughter matings...with another bull (or even another breed) in between 'em - but I'm not sure there's even any of those.
Good bull with good disposition, sires good cows and decent steers. Sure glad I got to use him more than two years; would have been quite a waste to ship him after just 2 years.

 

[Nesikep]

If I buy (er, spend a LOT of money) on a good bull, there's no way i'm getting rid of him after 2 years.. seems like 5 years is a good time, that means we get about 100-130 calves from him. If the bull turned out to be unexceptional, I would get rid of him sooner though.